The Beginning

New Blog: Working in Poker

2012-02-08T08:06:00.000-08:00

Now I'm back to being an independent entity for the time being I feel it's only right I crack my knuckles and give my honest opinion of mine and the UK Poker scenes current situation. I'm going to cover two main points in this blog.

1. My departure from BBP.

2. The UK Poker Scene - radical ideas.

Leaving BBP

It wasn't long after my last blog that I was given the unfortunate news that my time at Black Belt Poker had come to an end. It came as a bit of a shock although working for a small company you accept that it's always a possibility.

I really enjoyed my time at BBP. Having worked for a Scandinavian brand before, I was eager to join a UK focused company as that's where my passion, contacts and marketing network had always lied.

I was part of some great promotions and two popular live events and met lots of excellent poker players. We parted ways on good terms, I certainly wasn't fired, nor was I replaced.

I have to congratulate Neil and all the BBP staff for what they have achieved. Neil especially is one of the hardest working guys I've ever met. BBP was basically an idea of his that he worked relentlessly to make a reality.

I really do think BBP could became a large success IF some major changes are made. I won't go into detail, but members of the site will know what parts of the site do and don't work both technically and theoretically. They've always had large ideas, but you have to get the basics right first, otherwise expansion is impossible.

I wish them all the success in the world and will always have my eye on them.

The UK Poker Scene - Some Radical, but Scaleable Ideas

As my recent departure from BBP proves, times are tough in the poker world. Everyone is playing catch up to Stars, but will one new site or current network ever get close? I think not as there are too many ideas floating around and too many people thinking they can become a success.

Year upon year we see sites come and go, thinking they can take the same old ideas and make them a success. Some try something new, usually with little success. BBP is hanging on in there, but like I said before I don't think they have a chance for large expansion until changes are made. Real Deal Poker had a real shot at being big. They had a product that could attract the fish to online poker, which in turn would attract online players to take them on. Had they of been smart, i.e. not greedy, with their idea, they could of been a big success. Yet they tried taking on the big dogs themselves and failed.

Can anyone do it?

I believe so, and without the need for fancy ideas and crazy business plans. What's needed is co-operation, utilisation of local knowledge, conquering separate markets and then forming a large entity. Let's take the UK for example.

We have several independent online brands in this country all taking 90%+ of their business from UK players. The best examples:

Black Belt Poker

Sky Poker

Dusk Till Dawn

Rags 2 Riches (The Western Club)

One Way Poker

Gutshot (The International Club)

Sure there are the Genting’s and Grosvenor’s, but I'm not worried about them, they pull enough revenue through their casinos to make online nothing more than a fashion requirement as opposed to a real necessity (I'd be interested to see their revenue figures).

Then there are the big brands like 888 and Party with a strong marketing presence in the UK, but they are hardly 'local brands'.

So, let's take the list above. Online the biggest is Sky by far, in fact they've been so successful they are on their own independent network. Add up the rest and you're probably close to doubling the player base Sky has to offer, but not only that, you bring into the mix some serious assets.

DTD is obviously Europe's best poker venue and the Western and International are both solid clubs in the London Area. BBP and One Way both have strong live poker ties with various smaller clubs and groups.

What if each of these companies merged to form one UK super network?

(please don't laugh at my graphical skills, this is just an example!!)

Here are some of the online benefits I feel this mega merger would bring:

1. Great traffic at reasonable times for UK players. Nearly everyone on the network would work, so would be playing mostly in the evening, just like live games.

2. Regular influx of recreational players. Let's not hide the fact, live games are always fishy, and the goal is to bring these players online. Affiliate deals can work, but it takes a lot of effort. If it's all the same brand, then it's much, MUCH more likely these players will play online.

3. Games are ALWAYS good. As I just mentioned, live games are always fishy. Sure there are some good players out there, but they are mostly lost within the wash of recreational player of varying skill. These type of games would be better mimicked online, making it tasty for the good players, but still fun for the recreational players, as they are never really picked on.

Some points about the software:

1. MAKE IT TRANSPARENT. People need to KNOW it’s a fair deal. Get regulated in the UK. SHOW people how it works. There should be no question about it.

2. Integrated HUD/Tracker software. Yes, the argument is that this is open to everyone, but the casual player will never go through the hassle of buying or learning it, or even knowing about it. What if it was all integrated, with options for beginner and advanced users, and of course plenty of info to help one learn. Now the playing field is definitely level, and the site can monitor what information is shared and used within their games.

Some of the live benefits:

1. The first ever CHAIN of UK poker clubs, not connected to a casino. A uniformed standard would be set, so you know whenever you step into one of these venues, you’re in for a great game of poker.

2. An easy route to expansion. With a wider stretch of players, and a wider audience, opening a new venue with an already established name will be much easier than opening a new brand.

3. Influx of online player live. While it’s usually the goal to get live players online, if we have a brand that’s happy with either, we can get nervous online players venturing out more.

Could anyone else join?

Of course. I really like the franchise business model. People pay to represent the brand, then earn income based on their personal performance. Other online sites can come on board and join the network, but instead of multi brand under hand competition, we all represent the same company, and all have the same goals. The same could happen with live venues.

What happens abroad?

Once the UK is conquered, we then launch networks in other countries made up of independent brands, using the exact same model. We succeed as we’re bringing in people with local knowledge, who know their market.

Once several countries are up and running, we have regional tables, and joint tables online. Perhaps you’re content to play against your fellow countrymen, but sometimes you might fancy the challenge of playing other regions. One word is important here, CHOICE.

Think about it.

Wouldn’t it be amazing? We take the best bits about local brands and turn it into a worldwide community. A poker network by poker lovers.

I wish.

Time to reel it back in. Where to next? I’m speaking to a few people with some interesting things on the table. I’m ready to get back in the mix and dedicate myself to a brand once again. I’m looking forward to the future.

Thanks for reading and thanks for all the support over the last couple of years. I will be back!

New Blog: Resolutions

2011-12-29T14:04:00.000-08:00

Time for the obligatory new year blog. Obvious I know but I've done it for the last few years now and it is a good way to track results. First though I want to follow on from my last blog.

I've not blogged since ~~October~~ for the simple reason: Twitter makes me lazy. The purpose of my blog has always and always will be to document my life. Why? I don't know, hopefully it will bring me joy when I'm older and hopefully serve to inspire my kids one day. (if you're reading this junior, fetch your old man a beer!)

Actually I just checked and my last real blog was fucking August! The last two were just cut n pastes of old articles to show in some discussion or another. Wow, almost 6 months since I last blogged? Can time of really gone that quickly? A blog at least once a month has to be a resolution. Right, let me write down all the subjects I need to cover...

*checks twitter*

Phew. Right. Here goes.

Let's start with Black Belt Poker as we've had some amazing things going on recently, the biggest undoubtably being Nottingham Live.

For such a small company, we've always had big aspirations and doing a second large live event was definitely ambitious. Still, we went full steam ahead and ended up going well over the 400 runners needed to make the guarantee, in fact finishing just shy of 500 runners. As expected DTD was a quality venue and everyone I spoke to had a great time.

I didn't fare too well, with a super aggressive opponent directly to my right (opening 80% of pots) and the rest of the table being super tight. I was really card dead so never had a chance to really win anything.

Great weekend and I'm really looking forward to our live events next year. We will be going one step further, at least adding a 3rd event to the roster, and then who knows...

As well as all our successful academies, we did a free poker workshop inviting players who hadn't played on Black Belt Poker for a while. The venue was, of course, the Vic and this was the first project I was fully in charge of. I was very happy with the end result and think we learned a lot to fully unleash this once again later in the year. Here is the Vic looking all tidy before we started:

This was, shamelessly, the first time I'd heard any of our pro's in an academy type setting and I was really blown away, especially by Blue Belt Kevin Williams. It's not that long ago I was learning the cutting edge of 6max theory (5 years) but the game is completely different today. We watched Kevin play for a while and some of his theories were amazing. My favourite was bluffing one street knowing we would get called so we could get more money in the pot knowing another barrel would make them fold. Awesome.

We also did something a little similar for high roller players, inviting them for a free night out at the Ritz and offering them something a little special. I didn't attend as it was a school night, but it went well and we have a new Blue Belt from it, Mr Ross Jarvis.

For those who couldn't make the event we did a follow up one at the Vic and had a low turnout (one person lol) but the night was a fun one. We decided to sit down for dinner which was superb (Grosvenor food in general is excellent, Genting food however is TERRIBLE). Neil got a call while at the table and said we were going to be joined by a guest, which turned out to be none other than Ms Jennifer Tilly! Yes she's made a few errors on screen playing poker but she's had an amazing career (see the excellent 'Bound') and it was fascinating spending time with her, she had some great stories about the big Hollywood poker games and she was very down to earth.

Online we hosted the iPops, the iPoker Online Poke Series, which had $1m in Guarantees. This was super sick and one the online tournament pro's really shouldn't of missed out on as there was over $100k in overlays! Whether this will happen again or not is anyones guess, but I'm sure someone at iPoker is in trouble.

Last week we had the office christmas party at, your guessed it, the Vic. Great food and great banter, all the BBP pro's and office staff came together as well as Ken from Northern Poker Stars and Karl from the Little Vic in Slough.

The food was great and afterwards we had a £100 SnG. I was eager to play but against a lineup of Channing, Wooldridge, Bradpiece, Williams and Burland it was not a great idea, so I sold half my action to a missing Sam Razavi.

Whilst nearly everyone else had had a drink, I drove in and actually tried to win the damned thing. I said to myself I was going to play tight but couldn't help raising T5o in late position and getting called by Bradpiece on the button. An 88J flop wasn't great and I was sure if I bet I was getting called, but I bet anyway. The turn T was a lucky card for me and usually I would check here, but I wanted to stick with my plan and try double barreling, assuming Jerome called me on an obvious floatable flop. I bet again and Jerome finally folded, claiming 9's. Yes! What an ego booster.

I continued playing aggressive before getting my dream two opponents 3 handed, Mr Channing and Mr Wooldridge:

With the blinds nice and high and some decent shoving spots, I made quick work of these two amateurs and took it down. It's going to be a fun year of bragging in the office. In fact, the first thing I will say when going back in tomorrow is 'anyone played any poker over the holidays?' and 'I only played once, but won' hahaha.

I've been playing quite a bit of poker, trying to play at least one tournament a week. I've been playing most my poker at The Little Vic (an article I wrote about the place) which has been fun, but I've not had many results, save for a couple of final tables. I've travelled around a little and had another final table at the Western, but again not for much. The biggest win I had was the christmas party SnG. However, I do think I've had my best year ever, with 3 wins, so that feels good.

My poker plans aren't changing much really, just trying to play whenever possible. Now BBP has Razz, I'm going to try and play that as much as possible, but really I'm not planning on doing anything serious.

After missing last year, I made the trip to PITP this year to see BBP win a couple of awards. We were going to host a tent, but after getting a quote and analysing player performance from last year, we decided it wasn't a cost effective exercise. I bumped into Sam Trickett for the fist time in a couple of years and it was great to see him and humbling he seemed so happy to see me. For those that don't know, I was one of Sam's agents in my first major poker role, the head UK agent for PokerIcons. This was sadly just before Sam broke into the big time, otherwise I'd be driving a Porsche now instead of being in debt!

Anna came with me and we headed into China Town for some munch:

(mmmm, beer in the photo, brb getting one...ahhh nice) Sadly we ended up in a restaurant that catered mainly for real Chinese people as the food was 'weird', no sweet and sour british chinese food in sight! It was still nice though and afterwards I took Anna on her first gambling expedition, first to the Empire where she hit a number on the nose playing roulette and then to the G Casino where we had cocktails and I won a little playing BlackJack. I've started teaching Anna to play poker as it I'd love to take her to some small competitions, it will be interesting to see how the guys react to playing against a tiny asian girl!

I've been on the hunt for a decent pair of Noise Cancelling headphones after my Bose QuietComfort 2's literally fell apart. I've had them for the best part of 5 years and they've been used vigorously, so they'v done the job well. I researched hard to find a cheaper replacement as the Bose's go for ~£27o new. I first tried the JVC HA-NC250's which had great reviews on Amazon and were only £81.

In terms of sound quality and noise cancelling capabilities they were great, however, I found the on-ear design (as opposed to the Bose over or around ear design) became super uncomfortable about a couple of hours use. A shame but they had to go back. I then tried the Sony MDR-NC60 which were a little more pricy at £135, but had the over ear design I needed. They were super comfortable and the noise cancelling was fine, but they picked up and amplified the signal noise from my BlackBerry like crazy, making it unbearable without having the phone miles away from you. I could of gone back to using an iPod, but these days I like travelling as light as possible and having a 35GB memory card in my phone means I shouldn't have to use anything else.

So back to square one, looks like I will have to shell out for the Bose's. I'm a little worried as there's been two models since the QC 2's, the QC 3 (which were on ear) and the new QC 15, which go back to the QC 2 over ear design.

Am still building up my Cigar collection and my humidor is now bursting at the seems:

Holy cow, the SMELL when opening it up is amazing. I shall definitely partake later on tonight. Here is a recent pic of me and Anna on a nice cold evening while I was puffing away. I really like this one:

And another of her looking beautiful after we had a little candle lit dinner:

TV wise I watched all of Breaking Bad an loved it, for the most part anyway. It dragged a few times but the ending of Season 4 was amazing. Looking forward to Season 5, who knows where they'll take it. Also watched The Walking Dead and enjoyed it too, the same thing it dragged but the mid season finale was pretty epic and the preview makes it look like it will step up a gear when it comes back.

Curb Your Enthusiasm was awesome. That's all that can be said. Movie wise I've not really been impressed much this year, although X Men First Class was brilliant. Here are my epic moments of 2011 (SPOILERS OF THE ABOVE SHOWS/FILMS):

The end of Gus. Holy FUCK this was amazing. I loved this character and the fact he went out the way he always lived, being smart and professional.

The hunt for Sophia was pretty boring and drawn out, but I never would of guessed her end. When you saw one more person was coming out the barn, you knew it was her, great ending.

What can you say, the bringing together of my two favourite comedians, and a proud day for all us Readingensian's.

It was brilliant to see Kevin Bacon back in a popular movie and his end, plus the creation of evil magneto, was great viewing.

And finally, it was a big year for UFC. Am looking forward to seeing Overeem take the title, but my favourite fight was a short one, Mir breaking Big Nog's arm. Amazing show of Jiu Jutsu.

Music wise I've had a nice and varied year. I won't go into it but here are my top artists of 2011 according to last.fm:

1. The Black Dog

2. Stars of the Lid

3. Back to Comm

4. Brian McBride

5. Jóhann Jóhannsson

6. Clams Casino

7. The Flashbulb

8. The Sight Below

9. Kriptic Minds

10. M83

So, a recap of last years resolutions (blog). I'm actually quite proud with what I've achieved.

1. Advance my experience/career/results as much as I have done over the last year.

What can I say about this one. This time last year I was sat in my room all day every day struggling with my last job and now I'm working in London for Black Belt Poker. I more than achieved this goal.

2. Work in a more efficient manner.

I achieved this by default as working for Black Belt Poker means regular(ish) office hours so I sleepy normal times and pack as much work as possible into the times I'm at my desk.

3. Take up a martial art.

I DID IT! Finally! After years of saying I'd do it, last month I joined a local MMA school. I almost started Wing Chun, but a friend was starting MMA and deep down I knew that was what I wanted to do. First the first year or so I'm just attending their striking classes, a hybrid style including elements of Mui Thai, American Kickboxing, Boxing, Karate and San Shou, which they call Thai Kik Jutsu. I am LOVING it, it's such a great workout. Here is the promo video of my school and what they do:

It's the perfect school for me as it combines everything I'd want out of martial arts. Effective styles (striking and grappling, I wont be doing the Kung Fu) with just a little bit of tradition (uniforms and gradings). Looking forward to getting my Yellow Belt this year!

4. Become healthy.

This one has been a fail. For most of the year I stopped playing squash and except a few sporadic diets where I lost some weight, I'm back to square one. However, I'm not too disappointed as I've made preparations to start getting fit with the MMA training and have joined the squash league again. I will touch back on this in 6 months.

5. Complete at least one large personal project, either launching a small business, finishing a poker documentary or releasing a piece of music.

Another majority fail. I've done little tweaks here and there on each thing though, so not completely stagnant.

Here are this years resolutions.

1. Make some big achievements with Black Belt Poker.

Hard to qualify what this is going to be, but I will know in my heard next year if I've worked as hars as I could have.

2. GET HEALTHY (inc. get my yellow belt and win squash league).

I'm turning 27 in a couple of weeks, so using my youth to compensate for bad eating habits has finish. I will get healthy this year and have two mini goals of getting my yellow belt in kickboxing and winning at least one squash league.

3. Complete a creative project.

This is releasing a piece of music, launching a small business or doing a mini film. I still have a few of these in progress and there's no reason why I can't finish one this year.

So that's it. If I can achieve these three things, it will of been a good year.

Hope everyone has a cracking 2012.

New Blog: Introduction to Razz

2011-12-29T07:03:00.001-08:00

Can't believe it's been around 3 months since my last proper blog. Will definitely write one next week. Until then I wanted to post an article I wrote about 3 years ago, introducing the game orRazz. BlackBeltPoker.com now has Razz tables and I'm trying to get a Razz game going tonight, so hopefully this helps those who have never played!

Razz is a simple game. It is played identically to 7 Card Stud with one key difference, the lowest hand wins.

Straights and flushes don't count against your hand, while pairs or better do, so the best possible low hand in Razz is A2345 (called a wheel or a 5 low), then A2346 (or a 6-4 low) then A2356 (or a 6-5 low) and so on.

The simplicity of Razz gives it a unique quality over all poker games in that your receive much more information about someones hand. Let's say in Hold'em the board shows 2 3 6. While these cards are weak, it is still possible to make a very strong hand such as a set, a straight or two pair. Similarly in Stud, if someone has a deuce as their doorcard (or upcard) they could still have a strong hand with any large pocket pair, or a very strong hand with rolled up deuces (three of a kind).

In Razz however, as we only play for low, high cards can't be part of a good hand. So if someone is showing a King as their doorcard we know they don't have a good starting hand. This kind of information means that we can steal antes and bring-ins with relative ease, much more so than other games.

A good starting hand in Razz is, as you might of guessed, three low cards. The lower the cards, the better the starting hand. As a general rule you don't want to be playing a hand for value unless it contains three cards 8 or lower. You can be slightly tighter than this to begin with by never playing a hand worse than 8 6 x in full ring games. Like other poker games the value of hands goes up the shorter the table, however to begin with its probably best to never show down a worse hand than an 8-6 low.

Another major factor on how how strong your starting hand is in Razz is a general Stud concept, how 'live' it is. If you see that there are lots of your pair cards (cards that if dealt to you would give you a pair) out as doorcards then this makes your hand considerably stronger. Conversely, if there are none of your pair cards but lots of low cards as doorcards, then this can make a starting hand like 8-7-6 very weak as there is less chance of improving.

Finally, now that we know all of this, we need to look at stealing. Lets say we are dealt (KQ)A, with the Ace being our doorcard. The player to our left brought in (in Stud games, instead of blinds, the worst upcard must make a forced bet) with a Q showing and the action was folded to us. We know he does not have a good starting hand, yet he can't know that about our hand. We can raise him and even if he suspects us of stealing, there is little he can do about it. Even if he does calls, we can confidently double barrel if we catch another low card and he catches another high card or open pair. Because you can't get trapped by a deceptively weak looking hand, stealing is very important.

Razz is a simple game on the outside, yet it is often played at a very low standard. Following these basic strategies will help you gain an edge very quickly in this fun and unique game.

New Blog: Live Poker Advice

2011-10-06T02:09:00.000-07:00

I will write a proper blog in the next couple of days but as Black Belt Poker Nottingham Live might be the first live tournament for a few people, I thought I'd copy a couple of old articles I wrote which contain some pretty good advice.

New to Live Poker?

These days I seem to encounter many more good and observant players in small buyin tournaments and cash games. While it can take a while to figure out who these players are, you might be able to spot one or two before the game starts or during the early rounds. Here is what I look for:

1. A player starts doing chip tricks as soon as he sits down. This is a great indication of confidence and usually means this player at least has some experience.

2. Poker stories. If someone is talking about a poker hand, pay attention to how advanced their explanation is. This can reveal valuable information on their skill level.

3. Well known players. If you see someone shaking hands with another player in a bigger game before sitting down with you, then there is a better chance he is a good player.

I will also try and chat to anyone sat alone at my table and see what information I can pick up. While these pointers aren't always accurate and shouldn't be taken too literally, they can at least give you a head start in developing reads.

So let's assume that at least one player is watching how you play, how should you act at the table during a hand? One word is very important here, REPETITION. What I mean by this is that you need to behave exactly the same whatever the strength of your hand. Find a relaxed seating position, which if you're unsure is usually how you are sat when you're studying a hand you are not involved in or when you have a big hand.

Here are some things to take note when you're playing a hand:

Time. Take the same amount of time to bet whether you have a decision or not, or strong or weak hand.

Betting. Make sure your betting action is the same regardless of your hand strength. Also take notice of your chip denominations and use the same ones each time, for instance don't bet lots of small chips when weak and a few big chips when strong.

Eyes. Be relaxed about where you look. If you never look at a player when bluffing, then never look at him when strong.

To reiterate, repetition is the key. For extra nervous players, take one hand out of action by resting it on your cheek or thigh and have your chips separated so you don't have to fumble with them during a hand.

Another major point to look at is talking. Against good players my advice is to never talk, even when they start asking you questions and even if you think it is your only chance to win. More often or not you will give away information about your hand, or more dangerously how you act when weak/strong. Let your betting do the talking. Against bad players it's sometimes ok to try and sway their decision with a few words, but always be aware of what it's doing to your image.

After you are comfortable at the table you can start to use these pointers against the other players. Look at how they react in different situations and try and spot breaks in any repetitions they have. Of course, these need to be backed up by solid reads on how they play hands, but noticing some physical tells can help sway decisions. Don't worry if you don't notice anything straight away as it mostly comes from experience. Also, watch the good players as much as the bad players as it's usually the better players who have more concrete tells as they make less random moves.

Finally, don't get too stressed or bored at the tables. Have a good chat and laugh between hands to relieve tension, this can often be more beneficial than trying to watch every hand. Be friendly to the other players as they are your 'customers' who you don't want to scare them away! Live poker can be an immensely fun and sociable experience if you treat the game with respect...and stay away from the casino games!

Preparing for a live tournament

As I sit in the lounge area of the Full House in Reigate, soaking in the ambience of poker chips shuffling together, Sky Sports on the big screens and the hum of the coffee machine I feel extremely relaxed ahead of tonight's tournament. This is by no mistake, I take careful steps to make sure I'm feeling great before a tournament. Just because poker is not a physical sport does not mean you shouldn't carefully prepare both your mind and body.

Being on a good sleep schedule is very important, so try and get as many good nights sleep as possible leading up to a tournament. If you are an early riser and your tournament is later in the evening, try catching a power nap before you leave. A power nap lasts 20-40 minutes and can help revitalise the sleeper much like a decent nights sleep. Be careful not to sleep longer than the stated time however as this can result in you entering a deep sleep without completing it, leaving you feeling more tired than you did before!

If you are a regular exerciser try not to have an intense workout on the same day as a tournament especially if you usually feel very tired after one. Definitely have one the day before and on the day do some low intensity cardio such as walking or cycling as this will help relieve tension.

Avoid caffeine until absolutely necessary. When I played my first big event I saw a player with about six Red Bulls lined up on the bar and when I tried copying him I soon found out what a mistake I had made! Caffeine can provide more negative effects than positive ones including dizziness, confusion and irritability. When you have been playing for eight hours straight and your eyes are starting to drop, then its time for some caffeine. Otherwise, try to build and rely on your body's stamina through a healthy lifestyle.

Similarly, try not to eat too many sugary/processed foods whilst playing as these can give you unnecessary highs and lows. Fruit is a great snack when playing but I have found casinos don't usually have any, so stick a few apples in your bag.

When travelling, plan your journey ahead. Allow time for getting lost especially if going to a venue for the first time. There is nothing worse than arriving in the nick of time, flustered and stressed, or even worse missing the tournament altogether! If playing a multi-day event then book hotels well in advance as you can usually get some great deals.

Remember, you want to be relaxed and ready to play when you sit at the tables. Do everything you can to help and this will give you an instant advantage over your opponents.

New Blog: Breakage

2011-08-09T09:28:00.000-07:00

Thank god for Twitter! 3 monthly exactly since my last proper blog, if it wasn't for me Tweeting everything I would of forgotten if I'd done anything half interesting.

Starting with Black Belt Poker, what a great few months it's been!

I think we need to start with the incredible performances some of our team had at the WSOP. Black Belt Poker definitely made its presence felt. We sent a team of 11 out there to stay in a super sick mansion and it wasn't long before Richard 'Chufty' Ashby made a final table, coming 4th in the $10k O8. A great feat in itself, he bested it a couple of weeks later by coming 3rd in one of the hardest tournaments of the series, the $10k 2-7 NL. What a 3 handed game it was, Chufty, Juanda, Hellmuth. That would of been a spectacular win. Still an absolutely sick run. Here is Chufty being consoled by Hellmuth, out of all the pics this is the one I'd want framed, really captures the essence of the WSOP!

We had some great performances from our other players, but the stand out show was from Black Belt CEO Warren Wooldridge. Warren outlasted 4573 players (!!!!) to come 3rd in the $1,000 NLHE event. This was streamed live and sweated every moment of the final table, I've never been so excited! It was amazing to watch but sadly the boss couldn't fade a 3 outer AIPF and had to settle for 'just' 3rd place and $288,946. Here's an excellent final table shot of Warren:

This win made Warren our newest Brown Belt. He now has $4,000 a month to play the circuit for at least 6 months, sick! Fancy some of that? http://blackbeltpoker.com/rewards/

We ran one of the coolest promotions ever during the WSOP, the 'Vegas Prize Fund'. Out of any cashes our 11 pros made (in sponsored events), we would take 3% and share it out between anyone who was Orange or above through June and July. With Warrens 3rd place, the Prize Fund ended up at $9232.76, giving each of the 127 eligible players a $72.70 bonus just for maintaining their belt! Sad you missed this? Read on...

It wasn't just the WSOP we've done well in since my last blog; Black Belt Sam Razavi won the UKIPT Cork for just over $100k!

You have to zoom in to see the ridiculous sized patch. Thanks Stars.

Anyway, not only did Sam win, but 3 of our Orange Belts had shares in him. How? They came 1st 2nd and 3rd in a MONTHLY FREEROLL. That's right, every month we give away shares in all our pros, only available for Orange and Purple Belts:

http://blackbeltpoker.com/promotions/orange-freerolls/

Because Sam won the UKIPT, 3 Orange Belts shared out over $16,000! There's the potential for this or even more every month, so get your Orange Belt now, it's so freakin' simple.

We made the decision to move all our Academies to the stupid price of £99. This for a full days training with all our top players is just a ludicrous price. Our next one coming up is 'Poker In The Modern World' where you'll learn exactly how to get yourself set up for online poker. Essential.

http://blackbeltpoker.com/1562

Finally, just a little preview of something I've been working on:

This little baby is going to be free, too. More info to come.

So, onto what's been going on with me. (Warning: a little deep at times, but it's very therapeutic to write! If you only like reading about poker stop reading now!)

May was a sombre month as my Grandmother passed away. My Father passed suddenly about 7 years ago now and since then I always found it hard to visit her as there were just too many memories of him lying around. I feel guilty about doing that for the first few years when she really needed us as she lived closer to him, but for the past few years she moved close to my Aunt, so had regular company with that side of the family there.

The irony is I was planning on phoning her to arrange a visit, but was interjected by my aunt saying we had to go up there. We barely made it and had time to say goodbye, and within a matter of minutes she'd passed, very peacefully. Complications bought on from Pneumonia if I remember correctly, but she was in her mid 80's, so had lived a very full life. So that was quite sad.

I bought myself a Blackberry Playbook, which I'd been waiting for for months. The excitement of waiting and wanting this new gadget was immense, but after I'd finally bought it and set it up, I was lost. What do I do now? I've hardly used it, there's really no time I need it, and to be honest I've found it quite stressful adding another screen/gadget to my almost ridiculous collection and finding times to use it to justify it's worth. I've thought about getting rid of it, but it might come in handy some time? I'm not sure. I'm leaning towards selling it. If anyone wants a bargain, give me a shout.

I've still been getting more and more into my cigars, buying a new humidor and filling it up nicely. My collection is now extremely respectable:

The SMELL when opening that up, my gosh, perfect. I almost like the collecting and storing of the cigars as much as the smoking! I've cut right back since I've been unwell (more on that below) but am still regularly adding single sticks here and there to the collection. The next I want to get into is liquors.

I hosted a little cash game for mates the other week and during it started feeling ill. Mostly chronic nausea. This went on for a few days, then week, and I'm now only getting over it. It got to the point where I had a bunch of blood tests, for which I had the results today, but everything was fine (save for some high readings from my liver, but this is because I'm still a little overweight and is easily rectifiable).

So what was the reason? Well, in 2009 I was having a shitty time. Very depressed. Post-Uni blues (sounds silly if you've never had it, but image having the most fun filled few years of your life and then coming back to 'reality', it is very hard to manage) coupled with another major bereavement AND worries about my career. I couldn't take it and finally gave in, went to see my doctor, and got some tablets. It wasn't a miracle cure, but at least it helped me sleep and not feel to low. I stayed on them last year as it was still a stressful time for me, plus I still hadn't gotten over that bereavement (in fact, I didn't to any grieving at all).

This year things are a lot better, so once my last course of these tabs ran out about a month ago I decided it was time to come off them. My doctor recommended coming off of them quite quickly, but it seems like this was a bit of a mistake. There seems to be some very serious side effects from doing this and low and behold this includes nausea. I've also felt quite low because of this.

What's the solution? Well one of them is to go back on to the tablets, but I really really don't want to. I can do something about it now. So I'm a) going to ramp up my health, no bullshit this time, and b) get some counselling. I put off that Bereavement for too long and now I have this new one to contend with, there's a slightly too big of a backlog for me.

I think, with this done, I'm going to be a much happier person. I'm alright most of the time anyway, and to other people, but you have to work the kinks out! It has to be done!

Felt good to write that.

I've been playing a little poker recently, averaging out about once every couple of weeks. I'm enjoying playing evening tournaments again, something I got bored of. The local casino does a £40 freezeout every Thursday which is fun, as it's a really nice place and the first place I ever played! Got deep a couple of times but no cash, but I'll most definitely be there this Thursday.

There's a been a new venue in Reading for a couple of weeks but to be honest nothing really took my fancy there, however I decided at the last minute a couple of weeks ago I wanted to play and it being 5 mins away was the only choice.

Not my preferred tournament, it was £30 for a bunch of chips with £10 rebuys and a £20 add on. Not being any good at rebuys, I just sat there and played about 2 hands, doubling up on one and winning a big pot on the other. After the rebuy period things calmed down and I put my aggressive hat on. To finish the story quickly I won, and it felt good! Everyone was playing very timid - trying for the money, but I just raised myself onto the final table and stole so many pots. Fearlessness is definitely key in these things.

The recent new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, probably my favourite show, has stirred me into watching them all again. Very addictive, I'm already one season 6! To cope with the loss of finishing it again, I've been auditioning new sitcoms. How I Met Your Mother is in the lead right now, and with 6 seasons and 'the new Friends' tag, I'm looking forward to getting into it. Also to try out is 30 Rock and some classics, Everybody Loves Raymond and Seinfeld - I mean it would be crazy not to.

So that's pretty much everything important that's been going on. If you want to follow me on Twitter please do: http://twitter.com/1tripz1

Otherwise here is my favourite song, from my favourite album, of the year so far:

(Oh and Breakage refers to the DJ I'm listening to right now!)

New Blog: Music and Poker

2011-05-14T05:52:00.000-07:00

Got a little bored the other night so wrote an article. Enjoy!

Music and Poker

Walk into a cardroom or watch any poker on TV and you’ll inevitably see people listening to music at the table. This is a great idea if done for the right reasons. Occasionally though players will be doing so because they see others doing it, or even worse; to look cool.

Music a great way to accompany your live poker experience, but you must be doing it correctly.

Why?

There are three main benefits to listening to music at the table. First, it can help you relax. Listening to some soothing music can calm even the hottest headed person. Secondly, it can really help you focus. With the distractions taken away from around you, it’s much easier to take notice on what’s happening. Finally, it can stop you getting bored. Yes, we all love poker, but a cold run of cards can distract the most dedicated fan.

A non direct benefit can be misdirecting the players. If your opponents think you’re focus is elsewhere, they may try and pull some bigger moves against you. If you’re listening to music in the correct way however, you’ll have the last laugh. You can ever be extra sneaky and wear your headphones without any music playing. Just don’t let on!

How?

Turn it on and stick it in your ears you might think is the obvious answer, but you need the right set up for poker. A decent pair of headphones is essential. You want the music to be prominent in your ears, but not so loud you can’t hear someone speaking up, or so loud it damages your ears.

In ear headphones are bad for prolonged use. You’re pushing them right up against your ear drum, often resulting in tinitus (ringing). Tinitus is when your inner ear is damaged; after a while it never fully recovers.

On or over-ear headphones are the solution. Sure they look big and clunky, but we’re not here to win a fashion contest. When choosing a pair, you want them to feature noise cancelling capabilities. This means the headphones eliminate the ambient (outside) noise around you, meaning you can listen to your music at a lower volume. My Bose Quiet Comfort 2 headphones have served me well over the years, but at £250 a pop for the newest model, they don’t come cheap. The JVC HA-NC250 come in at a more reasonable £85 and have an excellent track record.

Music player wise, there’s tons of choices out there. For me, I like to travel light, and can load 5GB of music onto my Blackberry which is more than enough to last a tournament.

What?

Of course, music choice is very much down to taste. My preferred styles for poker are Ambient or Dubstep. Some of my favourite artists for the tables include Stars Of The Lid, Brian Eno, Burial and Clubroot.

Whatever your choice, make it relaxing and not a distraction. Don’t play your favourite rock ballards or indie anthems, you might end up folding a couple of blinds whilst you air guitar with your eyes closed (plus you’ll look ridiculous).

Etiquette

There is some basic etiquette to adhere to. Don’t have the volume up so loud it bothers other players. But most importantly, don’t let it slow you down at the tables. If you keep getting distracted and holding up the game, perhaps music whilst playing isn’t for you. Stay focused.

I couldn’t play poker without music. It’s an essential tool for my survival in tournaments and sanity in cash games. I always plan ahead however, taking the above tips into consideration, making it a benefit instead of a hindrance. Happy listening!

New Blog: Homework

2011-05-09T10:51:00.000-07:00

Wow, nearly two whole months since my last blog. I've kept putting it off as it's been a hectic time! Settling down into the new job, new office, and finding somewhere to live. Time for a recap.

Firstly, the new job is going brilliantly, I couldn't be happier. The last few years have been a grind, but it's definitely paid off. A combination of more sensible hours, less pressure and having an actual team to work with has completely lightened my mood. Following on from the last blog, we ended up moving to the new office and it's excellent.

You might of seen it when travelling up the M4, one of the towers at Chiswick roundabout with the 'Missions Logo'. That's us! (well, on the second floor, on those 4 tables). Much more relaxing, comfortable, accessible, productive, just great. For me anyway. Couple of the guys now have to travel through London, which is always a nightmare.

For me I decided not to move into London straight away. I instead moved into a new house closer to the M4 in Reading, in a new development called 'Kennet Island', a stones throw for Madjeski Stadium. While some rough areas are only a 5 min drive away, being in a new build is super surreal! I got the master room (ensuite) for £475 all inclusive. Find that in London! Oh, the house has a bar too:

And our local is the luscious new Hilton Hotel, where we get 20% discount for being residents of Kennet Island. MBN2BME!!

London Live was a great success. We sold the event out at 400 runners, then sold it out again at 414. Throughout the whole thing I really wanted to play, but was doing my first stint a live blogger. Not something I'd really want to do again, I was fucking EXHAUSTED after the first day. I mean I was completely dehydrated. Luckily for me I had a half shift on day 1B and the Sunday I covered the 3 tables of High Roller event. Much easier! It was fun to watch some great players splashing chips around in a bit of a crapshoot. 3 tables went to 1 in a few hours and the FT didn't last long as it was chopped 5 ways! Thanks to all who attended. Hard to believe a handful of guys organised such a successful event, making live poker clubs/promoters jealous the world over! (smug alert).

For those who still haven't looked at Black Belt Poker properly, what are you waiting for! The first level after depositing, Orange Belt, has recently been revamped. There are now 4 exclusive Orange Belt Freerolls, awarding Merchandise, season tickets to our League, Academy Tickets and free stakes in our Black or Brown Belts. Incredible value! Oh, and if you work up to Black Belt, you can $10,000 a month to play the circuit. Pretty sick too.

With the more sensible hours I'm now leading, I've been able to play quite a bit of poker. Still nothing like the olden days (I would play live 4/5 days a week and grind 4+ hours a day online), but at least once or twice a week. To put that im perspective, I think I've played more this year than 2009/10 put together. Most of my sessions have been playing cash at either KC in Swindon or the Western. Results have been good, winning 7 our of my last 10 sessions. I have played a few fun tournaments though!

Black Belt sponsored a charity event called Villas 4 Vets, a charity set up and run by 2 Afghanistan soldiers. Sadly the turnout wasn't great, so I ended up going along to play. We were 7 handed and amongst the lineup was Black Belt Poker's Nik Persaud and UK superstar Toby Lewis! Toby had position on me and it was the first time I'd played against one of these young guns. Of course it was a turbo SnG, so I couldn't experience it too much, but what I was able to do was call down a little lighter than normal, confident he would C-Bet he double barrel a fish like me. I ended up getting heads up with one of the young war heroes and ended it there, giving him the prizes. Very humbling meeting this guy, 5 years younger than me, already done so much more.

I also went to play the £50 Deepstack at KC and ended up chopping it heads up! I played probably the best poker I've played in a tournament, playing a super duper aggressive LAG style and confidently so, winning so many uncontested pots. Ah, to remember the days of being a poor student, when I'd literally fold my way into the money, 1st place or go home now baby! There was however an 'incident'. A quiet, grumpyish older guy was sat at the table. I'd played him at cash before and he is basically a huge station, but nice enough. We even had a chat about his the work he does earlier in the evening.

As I said, I'd been playing super laggy. We were down to the FT bubble and playing 5 handed. With nearly 1/3 the chips at the table, I raised the button with 4c2c. He shoved from the BB, something he'd done a few times over my opening raise. I asked for a mandatory count just so I didn't look too weak, but found out I was getting 2/1 on a call. In a gambling mood, and with tons of chips (losing pot wouldn't make a difference), this was more than decent enough to call! I flipped my cards and he looked at me in total disgust. He only had QJo.

The window card was a 4, then a Q, then a 2! another 4 on the turn finished the hand and without thinking about it I put my hand over and said 'unlucky mate' (very genuinely). Noticing he didn't shake it I looked up and he called me a 'fucking prick' !!! I was super shocked, asking 'did you just call me a prick?' and he was like yeah, what you gonna do about it? He walked round the table and looked like he was gonna smack me. People quickly intervened and he left. I was in total shock, I don't even think I would of retaliated (the Uxbridge boys were there to back me up!), we're there for a friendly game, why be like that? Spoiled it a little bit, but taking it down for £64o made up for it. Obligatory pic of me stacking the chips (forward tower ftw):

I had a fun night at the Western a few weeks back too. I was playing (and busting) the evening tournament and saw that Sammy 'any two' George had come in. I went to get some chips for the cash game and heard Sammy shout 'find someone to play me heads up!'. I didn't even think about it before he added '...for £50!'. Go on then.

It was fun. He was quite animated, but also humble. Heck, you'd have to be to go from playing millions dollar pots with Tom Dwan to stressing over a £12 call against me! We played two £50 Freezeouts, I won the first, he won the second, after calling my 99 3-bet with 73ss and flopping quad 3's :).

I also won one of the Black Belt Poker league games, it was great fun! I'm not playing the rest of the games so the top spots are wide open. Winners get a % share in either Neil Channing, Sam Razavi or Richard Ashby in the WSOP ME, amazing prize. Here's my write up with a few interesting stories involving Jamie Gold and Paris Hilton:

http://blackbeltpoker.com/articles/read/League-IX-Chris-Edwards

I went to my best mates engagement party, the first one to 'grow up'. For years people have been telling me you reach 'that age' when all your mates start getting hitched. It's quite scary! Anyway, at the reception I saw the pub had a selection of Cigars, so I bought one and really enjoyed it. I've since read some reviews and bought a few to try, my favourite definitely being the Nub Cameroon. Just 4 inches long, but still takes nearly an hour to smoke and lovely smooth creamy flavours. Expensive at £10 a stick though! Have to limit myself to one a week.

Delicious.

Anna is still in the Philippines and I'm missing her like crazy. She's applied for a new student visa and will be here for some time, which is amazing. We're now waiting to see if she gets it approved. Horrible waiting game. I watched one of those immigration programs on Sky last night and they were letting loads of mugs in, she's always been very compliant, so why wouldn't they? I'm going to be crushed if she doesn't get it granted. Will be lots to think about. Here's a pic of here enjoying her homeland and looking beautiful as always:

TV wise I've been watching lots of UFC and getting back into the X Files. I was SUPER pumped for the Machida vs Couture fight and it didn't disappoint. Best knockout ever? Maybe. I've also been enjoying the Van Damme documentary. He seems like a very genuine guy with a very serious illness. My father had Bi Polar and it's not easy to cope with.

Music wise there's been lots of new bits but I'm honestly written out now so I'll just leave you with one of my favourite songs of the moment. Thanks for reading as always and send me a Facebook PM or email (chris@blackbeltpoker.com) if any questions.

New Blog: I'm back!

2011-03-13T06:15:00.001-07:00

Wow, nearly 2 months since my last blog and lots to catch up on!

As most know the new position I was talking about in the last blog is with BlackBeltPoker.com

My job title is Business Development Manager and I honestly couldn’t be happier with this. I had a few opportunities upon leaving my last job, but choosing with such a UK focused and innovate skin was a no brainer.

What does my job entail? Well it’s pretty much ‘what is says on the tin’, I’m going to be implementing and developing various parts of the business, both new and old. BlackBelt’s success means they have grown at a ridiculously fast rate so I’m going to help them take advantage of all their opportunities.

With that said, if anyone is interested in talking about event, club, society sponsorship, affiliate deals, private leagues/tournaments or any other type of partnership with BlackBeltPoker, drop me an email chris@blackbeltpoker.com

A little about BlackBelt, we’re on the iPoker network which is easily the biggest network in the world. It’s also currently the 4th biggest site overall and regularly makes it to 3rd. That means you can log in any time of day and find the perfect game you want to play.

Our most exciting event coming up is Black Belt London Live II.

Join Black Belt Poker to register for the best value deepstack tournament in the UK! 400 players will compete for a $100,000 prize pool with a guaranteed first prize of $20,000 with up to 20% added to individual prizes and 20 bounties up for grabs.

This really is going to be a fun event, an absolute no brainer for players from the South and a serious consideration for those a little further afield!

Next blog I'll go into a little more detail about our grading system. BlackBelt is unique, instead of offering the regular boring bonuses we offer complete training and sponsorship packages. The best way to improve your game and play the tournaments you really want to enter.

I'm still not living in London. It's SO HARD to find somewhere decent to live! So much keeps changing too, 2 of us moving in, 3 of us moving in, job worries, and now Black Belt might be moving office. So I'm currently commuting from Reading, which even though is not too far, is really draining. I don't get home till late and hardly have any time to do anything, which is why this blog has been really hard to write!

The office move is a good thing though, the office in Camden is terrible. You wont be surprised to learn that it's an easyoffice, yes owned by easyjet! Just think of their flights, ok for once in a while but you wouldn't want to do them for 8 hours a day!

We viewed another office in Brentford which would mean a complete change in where I'm looking to live; I could realistically stay in Reading. I know I want to live in London, but to begin with I'd be happy to see how my finances work in Reading. But it doesn't matter as of this moment as no new office is sorted, so my accommodation search is temporarily on hold.

I have a nice little set up in the office.

I bought a few things to stay there: The monitor is a 19" Hanns G. I have a 28" at home which I love, but it's a little unnecessary for the office as I won't be watching movies or anything. The little 19" works fine and I just dual screen with the laptop which gives me about the same workspace at the 28.

The stand which is essential for all those working on a laptop, I can't emphasise that enough. The mouse mat is a SteelSeries QcK which is amazing for the price, works so well. Then I bring my mouse and keyboard with me which is no big deal. The one thing I was also going to invest in was a pair of Gunnar Optiks, which I think I've discussed before, however I was shown a program called F.lux which automatically dims the screen in the evening giving it the same yellowish tint as the Gunnars.

I have to say it's absolutely awesome, and even better, FREE! Since using computers for lots of hours I've always had terrible eye strain and headaches, which I now know is due to super bright screens in the evening. F.lux is like an eye massage at night, plus it's real exciting when it automatically activates, you know it's getting to the end of the day!

Next month Anna comes back to the UK and I'm SO EXCITED to see her again. She went back to the Philippines at the start of the year as her visa ran out and she wanted to decide what to do. She's going to come here and study which means we'll be able to spend a lot of time together. I've really missed her.

Something a little exciting came up; the other day I had an hour long chat with the BBC about possibly assisting them on a documentary about young gamblers. That would be great fun. Still early stages but I'll keep you updated.

Other than that it's just been grinding hard in the office. I'm super determined to succeed in this role and stay with the company for a long time. Hope you can all support me!

I'll leave you with an amazing piece of music. The Jurassic Park Theme Tune slowed down 1000%. Sounds crazy but it turns it into a beautiful orchestral ambient piece. Give it a go.

New Blog: Moving on...

2011-01-22T10:47:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I made the announcement that I've decided to move on from PokerIdol.

It wasn't an easy decision as I enjoy the freedom this job has given me and the hard work I've put into building the brand, but the opportunity I've been given isn't one I could turn away. And that opportunity is...I can't reveal just yet. But the brand is a much better fit for me as it's aimed towards the UK market, my speciality, and has a great USP behind it. It's already done really well in it's short time and I look forward to helping it expand. My new job role is 'business development manager' and I cannot wait to start.

The best thing about the job is it's based in the London, the small team work together in an office in Camden. If I'm honest I've always wanted to move to the city for a while (see my blog 'London' from Nov) and now is the perfect time. The one thing worrying me was moving into a house share full of people I didn't know. This is always a risk and I didn't want some bad housemates ruining my experience.

However, after posting a tweet asking for housemates, I got a call from Simon who I shared with at University. The first year of my course I stayed at home due to living in the same city, so didn't really socialise with others from my subject. I moved into a large shared house with 3 guys I knew, one a friend from the course and 2 of his housemates I'd met, and then 2 others I didn't really know. The irony being that at the end of the year I was sick of the 3 I knew and much happier with the other 2.

We then found a 3 bedroom place for the third year and it was brilliant, we lived very easily together. So it was exciting when Simon called and said him and another friend from Uni had been planning on moving to North London for the past year! Absolutely perfect timing and I'm so excited I'm going to be sharing this experience with them. We're going to start looking for places next week, hopefully we can get settled in before I start as I don't want to start commuting, even for a couple of weeks.

Thanks to everyone who supported me during my time at PokerIdol, especially the team there. They are truly a great small company, one of the most honest I've ever come across, and if you're thinking of playing on the OnGame network I couldn't recommend them more.

Since my last blog I aged a year, turning 26. Scary! While last year I felt old, this year I feel young. Weird? Not really, I measure my age against what I perceive I should be doing with my life at the time. Last year I still living at home, facing at least a few more months doing so, just stating a job/continuing in an industry I wasn't sure about, single, all these things I felt I should of had sorted by that age.

But now, just a year later, I'm firmly rooted in the poker industry with invaluable confidence and knowledge, about to move to London to (hopefully) have the time of my life and am in a brilliant relationship. What a difference! It's been a fantastic 10 or so months with Anna, lots of ups with not so many lows, but sadly next week she's off back to the Philippines for a few months as her visa has run out. We're going to work hard to bring her back a few times though, hopefully permanently, and the two of us are going to work hard on our relationship to make sure nothing changes while we're apart. Thank you so much Anna, I love you :)

So, now I have four weeks of unemployment to look forward to! I was planning on doing my documentary idea but I just don't think I'm gonna have enough time, I'd rather spend time planning it once I'm settled in London. What I am going to do is write the three articles I mentioned in one of my past blogs and try to get them published. Can't wait to get cracking on those, might go to the coast for a few days of relaxation while I do them.

Not been playing any poker, but been watching a bit. Happy to see the Million Dollar Cash Game back on TV as it's always been a good cash game show. Isilidur1 being outed as Blom was a bit of an anti climax. I was hoping some of the other rumours were true, mainly it being Prahlad screwing UB or even funnier to being PH. Speaking of PH, my predictions for his move are (in no order) 1) Stars 2) Zynga 3) WSOP or 4) His own brand. I can't see him joining FTP even though he was speaking to them as they're more a cash orientated site.

I've been making a few purchases recently. The first being a Kodak ZX1 which I found for a great price on Ebay. What advances have been made in the world of camcorders! Never being into filming it's an area of technology that's largely passed me by, but with the prospect of doing documentaries I decided to invest in something half decent. The ZX1 is a simple little thing, but records upto 10 hours of HD film which is just right.

Next I bought an iPhone 4 and then returned it 24 hours later. Yes, the apps are crazy for it, which is what bought me to getting on, but when I tried setting it up as a business phone I wasn't happy at all with the results. Two big things; 1) You can't select all emails as read, I mean what a simple thing, but if you get 20+ a day it's going to be mega annoying. 2) you can't easily sync the To-Do list from iCal, which I use to run my life, so that was the deal breaker. I missed my Blackberry straight away, so went and got the brand new 9780. I actually prefer the old Bold, but the new apps for the 9780 are great (Twitter's own app especially) and of course it's perfect for business. So I guess I'm a Blackberry man for life!

I also bought my first tapes, the Pyramids 'Wvndrkmmer' album. A great idea and beautifully presented. To play the tapes I decided to buy a vintage tape deck that would look as nice as it sounded. I found a good condition Technics deck, instantly falling in love with its 70's styling:

So nice looking! Sadly though it arrived damaged. The sender refunded me instantly which was nice (and a little suspect) but I am going to try and get it working. Luckily though some digging around found my last ever casette walkman, which was boxed and in great working order. Here it is above the Pyramids album set:

Have eaten out a couple of times in last few weeks. I finally had my first sushi experience at Yo! Sushi. It was really nice although I preferred the cooked food rather than the fish. I then convinced my friends to eat with me and Anna at the local Grosvenor. Most people don't realise that every casino has a really good, reasonable restaurant inside it! We made it a double celebration as they'd just got engaged (Congrats Marc and Punam!) and it was my birthday. As expected it was empty, so we could relax and enjoy our food slowly, just a few hundred yards from all the chain restaurants charging crazy prices for boring crap getting you in an out as fast as possible!

Tonight me and Anna are going to TGI's as I have a craving for the JD ribs, they're soooooo good. We'll then go for a Shisha.

Thanks again for reading and here's to a much more exciting blog in 2011!

New Blog: Obligatory

2011-01-02T09:27:00.000-08:00

Yes, the obligatory new years blog. I've done one every year I've been writing (except 2009) and it helps but the year perspective.

What I like to do it look back at the previous years resolutions and see how close I've come to completing them. This time last year I was struggling, having left my last position in September and not hooking up with PokerIdol until a couple of weeks into January. I guess my main resolution for 2010 was to get my career sorted.

I'm extremely happy with how I've done. PokerIdol gave me an amazing opportunity with what was some interesting, but fairly flaky experience. It was a slow starter for me, but over the year I feel I've become a completely different person, a much more confident, relaxed young professional. While I've struggled in some areas of the job, I feel I've overal helped the company and have been extremely proud working for them. PokerIdol really strive to innovate and improve the playing experience and I'm thoroughly looking forward to 2011 with them.

So time to set some resolutions to complete this year. I'll list them out and go through them each in some detail.

1. Advance my experience/career/results as much as I have done over the last year.

2. Work in a more efficient manner.

3. Take up a martial art.

4. Become healthy.

5. Complete at least one large personal project, either launching a small business, finishing a poker documentary or releasing a piece of music.

1. As I said earlier, I feel I've moved forward considerably this year, but I want to keep going and either be in a more senior position next year or to of really increased my results. This will be tough, but with some real hard work balanced with an excellent non work life it's definitely possible.

2. Regular readers of my blog will of heard me complain about my efficiency more than once. Spending 10 hours working with only about 6-7 of them being productive is just no way to live! Imagine what could be done with those extra hours.

3. This links into number 4 as well but I've specifically wanted to start a martial art pretty much all my life, just never having the time or money. Now I have, I've spent the last year or so deciding which one to take and have come down to a few decisions. Wing Chun, Mui Thai, BJJ or traditional boxing.

4. Yes, the cliched one on everyones list. This year has been bad for my health. I started alright, but adjusting to the work load of this job and being inefficient has made me terrible. I've stopped exercising, become lazy and have been eating terribly. I'm on the verge of becoming a bit of a slob really, but my effort over the last couple of years hasn't completely worn off, so I should be able to pull it back fairly easily. I don't want any crazy results, just a couple of inches off my waist and a decent level of physical fitness. Adding a Martial Art to my list of other sporting activities (squash, golf, gym) will help keep things mixed up and interesting.

5. While 2010 was successful career wise, it's been extremely poor creative wise, which has killed me. First and foremost I'm a creative person, but my most productive thing this year has been this blog, hence the long, media rich posts! The two types of project I've been working on the last couple of years are business plans and documentary ideas. Both really interest me and I think I have great ideas. Then of course music has been a passion for years. I want to have something big by the end of this year I can be proud of completing.

As of now the documentary idea is the one I'm most likely to do and the one I feel most passionate about. I have two main ideas, a small one that will be fairly easy for me to do myself and a huge one which will be near impossible to do unless I have a lot of backing. Of course to get that I'll need a track record and therefore am going to start making lots of small films, whenever possible.

On new years eve-eve I was finally in the position to play some poker so headed to the new poker room in Basingstoke. They were playing a £1/£2 dealers choice cash game (NLHE, PLO and Irish). While my live cash game is rusty, and I'm still unexperienced in PLO and have never really played Irish, I decided to sit for a while. The players were all fairly weak passive and I did well building my starting stack up, but ended up even after playing for a little too long.

I decided to take another shot yesterday and decided it would be the setting of my first attempt at a mini film. Below is the result.

Video editing has never been a strength of mine, I used to use some very advanced programs on the PC and create some very bodged jobs for Music BA Coursework. However now I'm blessed with a mac and the very easy to use iMovie. I picked it up very easily (I guess experience of various audio and video editors help) and am really happy with the result.

Of course if I was to do anything serious, I'd use a more professional editing suite and get a proper editor in to do the job, but at least this way I can get some experience myself from a directoral point of view. This video was shot using my mac webcam and the camera on my Blackberry, so it's not the best quality. I'm getting a 32gig iPhone this week though, which has decent quality video, but I might also purchase one of those small flip HD cameras. Anyway, feedback on the video would be GREATLY appreciated. Go on, just fill out that little comment box.

So on to what else I've been getting upto since the last blog.

Christmas was really nice this year. The family is settled into the big house and all the building work is finally over. Anna came over which was awesome, the first time I've spent the holidays with a girl and it was definitely worth the wait.

New year was really quiet, Anna was working, and just a four of us was at my mate Marc's house. Still, we got the beer pong going which is always fun.

Movie wise I've not been watching much, although I did see the film 'Primer'. Made in 2004, it cost just $7,000 to make! A very geeky sci fi film, but I found it quite entertaining. I certainly didn't find it any less enthralling than Inception which cost $160 MILLION to make. Jesus.

I've had an interesting musical year in 2010, finding new artists has been my second creative release. To see my top 10's, head over to my last.fm profile here: http://www.last.fm/user/1tripz1

Other than that 2011 is shaping up to be an exciting year. Thanks to everyone who's been reading and have a cracking 2011.

New Blog: Catfish

2010-12-20T11:15:00.000-08:00

December has been generally quiet, but I've still found time to gamble and enjoy myself.

It's funny, I always put off writing blogs because I think I don't have enough to write about. I then do a quick brainstorm, some bullet points and one liners, and all of a sudden I've got about 10 different things to talk about. I'll try not to ramble through it all, but fair to say I find it all interesting!

By the end of this week two of PokerIdol's three big holiday promotions would of launched. The first is we're hosting 3 Satellites to the GSOP Bucharest, with a combined 8 Packages added. The tournaments are $5.5, $11 and $22 so represent unbelievable value. The last event in Malta had 333 runners and first prize was €72,550, with few if any pros attending due to the qualification needed, making this tournament series one of the best in Europe IMO.

Next we're launching a Freeroll series hosted by our new spokesperson, Dr.Poker. Who is this you might ask, well let me show you.

I'm very proud of this video. Firstly because I wrote/touched up a lot of the script, but secondly it's the culmination of tons of hard work from the PokerIdol team. We really do have some truly unique things to offer on one of the worlds top networks.

The Dr.Poker Freerolls Series will be 4 Freerolls events, each with $2,500 added. The top 10 points finishers from these, as well as the top 10 Experience Point earns from 20 Dec to 20 Jan will each enter an exclusive Freeroll with 2 GSOP Bucharest packages up for grabs. That's right, you'll have a 1/10 chance of going to Bucharest, for free!

For all information on these as well as a preview for our Team promo coming up in January (which I'm super excited about) go to www.pokeridol.com/Promotions.aspx

This month started quite slow for me as I was ill with the dreaded man flu. I've not had this for a couple of years now after becoming very careful about my hygiene. I always have hand sanitiser in my band now and wash my hands all day, it's definitely made a difference as I used to get colds, sorry, man flu 2/3 times a year.

I actually got to play a little poker this month. Went to check out the pad of one of my old poker mates, one of the guys I used to play against in our regular live game and before the the poker project pub league. We hadn't played together or with any of the old gang for well over a year, but within a short period of time we had the poker chips out playing heads up.

Then last Friday he called me and said he wanted to play that night. So between us we rounded up some players and got the game going. It's been a while since I've played live cash having played tournaments a lot recently. I continued with the loose aggressive game but it wasn't nearly as effective, always having a couple of players calling my open raises. I enjoyed myself though and finished a little down. I think if we play again I'll tighten up a little from early position and see how that works out.

The poker world passes me by with little interest these days, largely as I don't have too much time to speculate about it, but one subject came up that has me a little annoyed. HSP has been bought out by stars and FTP will not allow their players on there. What a shame as HSP was the best poker show on TV at one point, giving a rare glimpse into real high limit vegas games, but now it will be just another marketing horse. Off the top of my head there now no made for TV shows that feature both players? (unless you count the WSOP of course) Things are getting a little silly.

Now for a little tech review. This next subject might not interest many, but for a serial road traveller with a bad sense of direction (aka lazy) like myself Sat Nav is really important. Ah man, I think back to the days where I'd use google for directions, literally write down the road names and the direction I'd have to turn (left onto the M25 is a thin direction) and proceed to stress out the entire way.

Then one month the Tom Tom came into my life. Sure, it didn't do the geeky things I wanted it to do (pre route planning on your laptop ala itunes and playlists) but it was amazing at getting be places. Sadly Tom was stepped on and his screen broke. Luckily around this time I purchased my first smartphone, the BB 9000 and heard my carrier Orange gave free Sat Nav. I downloaded the app and was surprised at how good it was, but it did have flaws. The first problem was it was very basic. No changing the voice to Ozzy Osbourne (not really necessary) and no re-routs/non highways option (VERY necessary). The last one was a real drag, the amount of times I was someone I didn't know and knew the motorway would be packed but had no option as it was the only route OM would take me.

The second problem was it was extremely unreliable. It usually took 5 minutes to load the map, not great when in a rush, and sometimes would not find the service, even with great signal in a city centre. This sucked for obvious reasons, I spent a good hour driving round Nottingham trying to get it working.

With the thought of travelling to Reigate close to rush hour and desperately not wanting to use the M25, I looked for another app for my BB. (note in this roughly 1.5 year period I tried getting my Tom Tom fixed on several occasions, but they have the worst customer service ever). I finally found Telenav, which had a 30 day free trial. Whilst still a pretty basic program, it fixed both of the previous problems. It had the option to miss highways and it was QUICK, and very reliable. The only problem is the price...£100 for a year?! That's ridiculous. I've now found someone independent who will fix my Tom Tom. I did this for my iPod when Apple wouldn't fix it and the results were great.

I guess the point of this tech review was...not much! I forgot about the £100 a year pricetag on the Telenav when writing it. I even clipped some pictures comparing the two interfaces, but what's the point when I've revealed they're both shit! If you're pissed that you wasted time reading that, it took me much longer to write it.

I'm not much of a geek when it comes to films, I like them simple to combat my crazy life which I think I've discussed before. Big bangs and big budgets are my sort of thing. However one trailer really caught my eye, the film 'Catfish':

The first thing I'll say is if you feel compelled to watch this movie, don't read up on it first. I will say that the trailer is a little misleading and it's not a horror or anything, but that's it. This is an exercise in pure talent, what great art can be made on a shoe string budget. Hollywood could learn lots from film makers like these. It also really shows how the internet has affected our lives. Will make a lot of people think!

This film also inspired me to start up my film projects again. I had the huge one in the works, but that would be impossible for me to do right now. However, I might soon be able to do the smaller idea I had, which could become a great little hour long documentary. Heck, even if its sucks, it will be fun to do an a nice little momento.

The snow, eurgh. I hate it. It's pretty and sometimes fun, but overall its disruptive. I've had a couple of meetings cancelled and I've largely stayed indoors, not wanting to dig my car out (it's still buried) and try ice skatin on the roads. The worst part is Anna is scheduled to come for Christmas, which I'm really looking forward too, but it's not going to happen if the roads are bad and the trains are cancelled. Come on snow, melt!

NYE won't be a crazy affair again this year, like last I'm too focused on how big 2011 is shaping up to be for me. Some friends, Anna and some drinks is all I need.

I'm going to end with a song again that I've been enjoying this month, in fact I think I'm going to do that after each blog. This month I've been listening to lots of tapes if you can believe it. As underground as I thought my music taste was, I found out only this month that there are artists who release stuff solely on tape! I think it's actually amazing and brings a whole new life to the sound. The only problem being it makes it harder and harder for me to find the video to post on here. I did get the new Brian Eno album on Warp though and enjoyed some of it, so will leave you with that. As always thanks for reading and have a cracking Christmas and new year!

New Blog: The Writer

2010-11-30T08:20:00.000-08:00

My writing itch is back with a vengeance; I've some extremely exciting articles on the horizon.

To begin though I really want to talk about the changes at PokerIdol. OnGame as a network has continued to flourish recently, if we look at the current graph:

And compare it to the last one I published just over a month ago we can see the bigger numbers are nicely evening out. Fishies here to stay! So onto PokerIdol. As you might of seen, we did the 'soft' launch of the new site. In the coming weeks we'll be launching 6 exclusive leaderboards giving everyone a chance to win something:

So now it's not just the grinders who get rewarded from the site (but of course the Experience and Activity leaderboards are perfect for you) but everyone! My favourite is the Guts leaderboard which rewards the biggest gambler. I'll probably win that one at some point.

Tons of cool stuff coming up in December including:

• 6 Exclusive Leaderboards with over $15,000 in prizes

• $14,000 in Freerolls, including 2 GSOP Live Bucharest Pages

• $19,000 of packages added to three GSOP Bucharest satellites

• Daily Xmas Present Giveaway throughout December

• Form a team and you and two friends could be jetting of to Vegas

So if you have some time off over Christmas and are looking for someone where play, look no further than PokerIdol. As always if you're interested to talk about a site please drop me an email (chris@pokeridol.com).

Have had one game of poker since my last blog, I went to play the £30 Freezeout at my local Maxims, my first ever real poker venue. Hard to believe it was 5 years ago I stepped in there with a work colleague to experience something bigger than our home game. I remember as soon as I entered the casino this was where I belonged, going back to the music studio just wasn't the same.

There used to be a dedicated poker room but this has been replaced with 24 hour slots, with the poker tabels now taking up the space of unused roulette tables. No problems though as the venue is quiet during the week. Structure was quick and standard of play was bad, but also the standard of opponent. I must admit with my recent forays into slightly bigger events, I've gotten used to a more professional attitude. Here was the loud, boisterous, drunken idiots I used to play with week in week out.

Still, I managed a 4th for a few squid but really didn't enjoy myself. Perhaps I'm becoming more of a poker snob, but the drunken know it alls really tilt me these days. So that's a 1st, 7th and 4th in my last 3 tournaments. My next is tomorrow night at the Full House, so hoping my run continues! Playing the absolute best poker I've ever played right now, just wish I had time to play more.

Spent a couple of days in London last week as Daniel, the PokerIdol Marketing Manager, came over for some meetings. Was great seeing him again as it's been a few months and me, him and Nigel did a little travelling round London, hitting the Empire, International and G Casino Leceister Square. Also met up with the Ukash guys again, great lads!

So back to the writing. I've been having more and more fun writing my blog recently and have been thinking of other things to write. After being in the Empire last week it bought back a lot of memories as my time as an agent. I think I could write three really exciting articles about those times. Some previews being: crashing Paris Hiltons boat party in Cannes with Jamie Gold, getting drunk with Layne Flack and Scotty Nguyen and battling Harrahs restrictions at the WSOPE final table. Who'd want to read about that?

I'm also trying to arrange a couple of interviews which will give the inside word on the recent big games in Macau plus some insight into playing Dwan, Isildur and others online. I know I'd want to read about those things!

Other life stuff is going well at the moment, mainly spending a decent amount of time with Anna which really helps balance things. She's definitely one of the best things to happen to me in a long time (ahhhh I hear you say). We recently went out with some friends to a local restaurant called Giraffe which was pretty crap. Usual chain restaurant which cost about £40 per head. At the Empire we had a cracking three course meal with one of the best stakes I've had in a while for just £15, so the standard has definitely been set high. Here is us just before we went out:

How beautiful is she? We also went to see 'Due Date' which had some funny moments, but was pretty much as I expected; a ridiculously manufactured comedy.

Watched 'Restrepo' last night which was a bit of a letdown really, I know they risk being killed but I wish the cameramen got into the action more! There's a Dutch Afghanistan documentary coming out soon, so look forward to seeing that as it's supposed to be pretty brutal.

Sad news that Leslie Neilson died, I always loved his films especially the Naked Gun series, always able to crack me up.

Tonight am off to play Bingo at one of those large chain venues for my Nan's birthday! Wondering whether to wear a PokerIdol patch hehe, but would probably get kicked out. Other than that just more work grind.

Will leave you with some beautiful music and thanks again for reading.

New Blog: London

2010-11-15T10:47:00.000-08:00

I've been hitting the city more frequently than normal recently, at least once a week, with last week being no exception.

I had a meeting with the guys from Ukash about some joint marketing ideas. I was quite surprised about how young they were. We chatted all for about 30 minutes before the beer was ordered and talk on gambling started. Can't really blame us, we were in the Mint Casino, one I visited a few months ago for the Bluff industry night. A friend of the Ukash guys joined us, a sports betting broker, who was a great laugh. The first thing he said to me was 'POW!!', then stating I look like Rob Riggle. If this makes no sense, look on...

What do you think?

In a couple of years maybe!

After a few beers the sound of chips became too much for us so we moved to the roulette machine. I showed some restraint and resisted a game, mainly because I was feeling a trip to the Empire and wanted to save my dough for some drunk cash poker (stupid as normal). That didn't happen but no worries, I definitely got my gambling fix...

London does tire me out when I'm constantly traveling around it, but when I stop and enjoy it as a city it has a vibe unlike any other. Reading as a social environment is pretty boring. You're limited to student/loser orientated places, a chain bar/club that's totally lifeless or an independent venue trying to copy them. Very hard to find a 'true' independent place that's not rammed or a shit hole. However in London there's something interesting round every corner.

That being said, the place we went to was just a 'standard' British pub. However, bring together a few gamblers, half full of beer and a pack of cards and anywhere will be fun. They introduced me to a 'game', hard to call it that really, where each person takes a card. You have one chance to 'stick' or 'twist', with the highest card winning. Jokers mean you win double the bet and other random scenarios mean other doubles. Played with points similar to chinese poker (which I suggested playing, I don't like gambling on games I've not played before!), we were playing £5 a point!

I started on a ridiculous rush and was close to £200 up. Luckily for these guys I'd only just met them so gave them a chance to get even. Of course, my luck went downhill and I quit the game £60 loser. Stopped my Empire ideas anyway! Left after that as Anna was waiting for me at home.

I had a cracking time with those guys and it really showed me how much I'd like to work in a team. I miss having lots of social opportunities and often feel quite isolated. I guess I have to accept that because of the work I do. One day perhaps I'll be doing well enough to rent my own office and employees and force them to hang out with me!

I logged onto Facebook a few days ago and was taken to some weird security page, stating someone from some middle east country had tried accessing my account! Really worrying. I proceeded to change my password to something mental (I have to carry it around with me as I'll never remember it) and do so on everything important I use. I went onto Hotmail (my 'master' account I guess) and when trying to change the password there noticed some weird email was confirmed as my alternative email. That is super scary as until then they could of gained access to my FB or more importantly my online banking. I changed the email on both of those and deleted the weird alternative email (although it can still be recovered by whoever owns it for another week). All weird activity has stopped, so hopefully that's the end of it.

No poker since the Fox, but I've been invited to play the Full House in Reigate on the 1st Dec, a £75 deepstack comp. Really looking forward to it due to my recent success in the single day tournaments and of course travelling to a new venue, one that's close to home, so I may well become a semi regular if I enjoy myself.

Today I bumped into one of my old lecturers from Uni and it made me feel real guilty I'm not doing anything music wise atm. I still feel very passionate about it, but also about my career which must come first. Once I settle down into a more regular routine I'll start writing some stuff again. Until then I'll continue to look for new and exciting music. My new band of the moment is 'Iron Thrones', who make epic progressive metal. Can't stop listening to it! The new Aborym album recently came out. I enjoyed it immensely but admittedly was a little let down after the last record, however it's a fantastic progression.

Brian McBride released a new album which is sublime, getting lots of play from me recently. Brian is one half of Stars Of The Lid, my favourite artist of all time. Seeing them play live a couple of years ago was one of the most amazing experiences of my life, especially as I'm not a huge fan of live music (weird I know). They performed at St Giles in the Field church right in the middle of London. I expected it to be converted to a proper venue but no, this was a real church!

I prayed for a sick system and was award, they had quite a set up shipped in there. The crowed all sat in the pews facing the altar and we enjoyed the opening acts in the tranquil fading light. I was a little disappointed as I'd heard they toured with an amazing projectionist but there were not screens set up. However, when they took to the stage Adam, the other band member, asked for the lights to be turned off. The place was pitch black! Swigging from my bottle of rum and coke I eagerly anticipated what was about to happen. Turns out the projectionist was there and had about 4 projectors. He proceeded to use the entire church wall as his canvas, it was absolutely beautiful. Here's a video we took during the performance:

At 0:45 seconds it lights the whole place up. Wow. I was SICK when I missed their last European gig at the Unsound festival last year. I tried desperately to sell things so I could go but to no avail. It had the best lineup I've ever seen:

Biosphere (NO);

Stars of the Lid + Octet from Sinfonietta Cracovia (US / PL);

Jóhann Jóhannsson + Sinfonietta Cracovia (IS / PL);

Sunn O))) (US);

Kode9 & the Spaceape (UK);

Zomby (UK);

Plus others, but that's all I cared about. The top 3 being my favourite ambient acts bar none, the rest being some of my favourite acts in their genres. The festival lasted a few days with each artist appearing at different weird venues around the city (Krakow). Bums me out just thinking about it. Oh well, something else good will come up!

Jóhann Jóhannsson has been one of my favourites for a while and I recently heard an excellent use of one of his tunes in the trailer for the upcoming film 'Battle Los Angeles':

This looks amazing, much better than the similar 'Skyline' which was just a sci-fi CGI abortion. At least this one looks to have some atmosphere, important when having such an effects heavy movie imo.

Went to see Jackass 3D and was a little disappointed! Seemed way too staged this time (I know it is anyway) like they were only there for the money, but not having fun. I miss the original days, definitely some of the funniest footage ever filmed. Also watched the Haye film in 3D which wasn't great, adding little to the broadcast. Finally been playing Black Ops which is also 3D but it gives you a headache after a while!

Home 3D is amazing don't get me wrong, but I still think the technology has been pushed a little far to soon by manufacturers wanting to gain an edge.

Other than that, things are still going great with PokerIdol and OnGame in general. The line continues to creep up with the player pool slowly increasing.

Thanks again for reading and appreciate all the comments!

New Blog: Foxy

2010-11-03T14:28:00.000-07:00

Ouch. My head. Sitting here right now it feels like my brain might explode. This blog is going to be mainly gibberish I feel but I need to release my thoughts.

One of my greatest abilities has always been one of my greatest downfalls. I'm super creative, but almost in an uncontrollable way. I'll take an idea, develop it and over think it to the point that I'm sick of it and I've not even attempted it. This is why I was never able to finish any music, yet alone release anything. On my music computer I have dozens of excellent 1 or 2 minute pieces, all unfinished because I tried taking them too far and got sick of them, dreading going back.

Right now I have 4 poker businesses that are in development. Two are ready to launch and two are set for the future. The problem is I want to start them all at once! That's another problem of mine, I hate waiting and want to do everything straight away. Will a few weeks, days, even hours make a difference to the launch? Maybe not, but that doesn't bother me.

So now I'm in the situation of which of these two business to launch. One can wait and the other can't. One will steadily make me money, the other wont (for a while). One will be LOTS of hard work, the other won't be so bad. One will be really time consuming to the point it will affect my job. But both would be really fun.

One things for sure, I REALLY want to create my own brand. I think that goes back to never releasing any music, I really want to have something, in my hand, that I've devised and launched.

Breath. I'm also starting to get a little worried about all this pressure I'm putting on myself. While I was in the chemist the other day I decided to have a diabetes test after seing a poster aimed at my age group about it. Blood sugar was fine, but my blood pressure was really high, high enough for them to refer me to the doctor. Going to see them next Monday, but I'm sure they'll just tell me to improve my lifestyle etc...

Brain feels a litte clearer now although I'm about finished typing. Why Foxy? Well this Sat gone I was invited to play at the Fox club and really enjoyed it. Free drinks always help, but the players and staff were all really friendly. The tournament was a £30 deepstack with tons of runners (loads of alternates) but I managed to wade through the field and came 7th, just outside any big money.

It was actually some of the best poker I've ever played. My aggression level was the highest it has ever been and instead of surviving, my old tactics, I pushed harder and harder to try and win. I won so many uncontested pots, it was great fun. Look forward to playing again.

Oh, and I didn't play the DTD Grand Prix in the end. They hit the max runners, turning what I thought would be an easy tournament with a decent overlay into just a 900 runner £50 freezeout, which I just don't have the time for.

Seeing Anna for the first time in a couple of weeks this weekend which I'm really looking forward too. I need to relax and spend some time away from the computer.

Thanks again for reading and I promise for a more interesting post next time!

New Blog: Busy-ness

2010-10-25T12:19:00.000-07:00

Things have gone from busy to mental over the last few weeks. Where to start!

After nearly a month since my last OnGame update things have continued to grow and we've FINALLY clawed back to where our traffic once was before things went tits up in Europe.

Congratulations to everyone from the network and may the line continue to go up! With regards to PokerIdol we're going from strength to strength right now. Our rake race was hugely popular last month, so much so some believed it too good to be true! For everyone who earned 1000 points but failed to make the top 40 leaderboard we arranged a $2000 freeroll with 20 places paid. We had 30 players qualify however only 12 turned up! That meant everyone was paid and more than they were supposed too! We've done the same rake race this month and we're expecting the same amount of qualifiers in the freeroll....however I'm sure more will turn up this time!

What about next month? Well, something big is happening with PokerIdol. You might of noticed this if you currently follow us on Facebook or if you logged into our client recently. We've gone through a complete brand overhaul, replacing the old blue theme to a much more red affair. In fact, here's a sneak peak of the new website:

Have a look and decide for yourself it all means. More details will be coming during the week before the site goes live. This will be the best way for you to prove which area of the game you're the best at. Bragging rights at the ready.

I've played one game of poker since Portsmouth and this was with the old Phat Dogs crew, after a call saying they were one short in the game closest to my house. Was great playing with the guys again, although I really noticed the difference in structure after playing some deep events. Just to think, it was a little over 3 years ago I arrived at their game, hands shaking, playing the highest standard I'd ever faced off against! It was good fun though and I came third for a mind blowing £10 profit, still nice to win something :)

My next poker is going to be the DTD Grand Prix this weekend. I'm playing the Friday so if anyone is going to be there let me know! Happy to slap a PokerIdol patch on you too, will have loads in my pocket.

Other than working hard with PokerIdol I've been devoting my time to my business projects. I've had to put the big one on hold I was speaking about before as another one needs to be launched ASAP. This one is super exciting and will be a second of its kind. Yes there is another company who has done a similar thing, but in a very amateur fashion. I'll bring some professionalism to this project and crush the competition. More news on that very soon!

Went to stay with Anna and her family this weekend gone and had a lovely time. They live right out in the country, near Canterbury. Was great seeing Anna again although it was over way too soon! We went to see Paranormal Activity 2 and I was unimpressed to say the least. I thought the first was very well done and genuinely scary however this time they just overdid it. A couple of decent jumps for sure (the kitchen one nearly killed me) but overall I thought it was very slow to start and never really took off. I look forward to the third one though, although I doubt I'll go see it in the cinema.

The last few times I've been I've had someone behind me really disturbing me. The last time at the Expendables it was a couple talking at normal volume and this time it was someone eating a LARGE packet of crisps. I mean, just bring in the nosiest snack to the cinema! While I'm a complete hypocrite and eat like a madman when I'm there, I don't see the need to have so much food when watching a film, I mean it's only a couple of hours (unless its some sort of LOTR 3 hour abortion). I hardly go anymore anyway, but I'm still going to cut my cinema going down to either films I have to see ASAP (Like Jackass 3D) or by going late at night when a films almost over, so the place is empty.

Speaking of eating like a madman, my weight continues to increase and I've decided to take drastic measures taking advantage of my many compulsive disorders. My one and only kept new years resolution was in 2006 when I vowed never to sprinkle salt on anything again. I'd pour it on anything to the point where a ham sandwich tasted bad without it! It was hard to begin with but slowly my taste buds redeveloped and food started tasting great without it. These days I could never add it, partly because I notice too much salt easily now and it spoils the taste, but mostly because I'd feel absolutely terrible for breaking such a feat.

So since last week I've given up the following.

Chocolate, on its own or something including it.
Creme, on its own or something including it.
Biscuits of any variety.
Small packets of crisps.

That's a lot of stuff but a sacrifice I'm happy to make. I can't have one biscuit but I'll have to eat the whole packet. I can't have one packet of crisps but several. I'm going to take this compulsive behaviour and use it for good! Sure those are some big things to cut out and I'm giving myself the chance to have them again in 5 years, but I'm definitely not going to miss them. It's already working, I'm passing up on all of them for the first time ever due to some crazy mental block I've now installed in my head. Now to get back to the gym!

I've just finished watching the complete Curb Your Enthusiasm. Larry David is my new hero. I love how direct he is and how he speaks his mind. I know it's still a fictional character, but I definitely think including some of that no holds bar attitude into my own character would be beneficial, albeit in a more tasteful way. Oh, and the Jew-stare might be the funniest thing I've ever seen. Each one cracking me up for hours.

So now I need something else to watch. For now I'm watching some Star Trek: TNG episodes again. I don't care what anyone says, a classic series!

Today I finally got round to upgrading my hard drive. What a difference a few years make! It's lighter, over double the capacity (1TB over the old 400GB), smaller and even cheaper. I'll miss my old hard drive but I'm sure it's about to die and that would be a total disaster. Now I just need to decide how I'm going to transfer the data. This will not be fun.

Thanks again for reading, good luck and good night!

New Blog: Grand

2010-10-07T06:33:00.001-07:00

After a couple of years of trying and a couple of years of not trying I finally had my first 'official' tournament win.

(I've qualified 'official' but being over £50 and in a specific poker premises (won a couple of tournaments in bars but don't count them)). I'll get to the details in a minute but will first backtrack.

This week saw some more exciting news for the OnGame network as one of the biggest Entraction skins signed a contract to move their players over. This means one thing, more fish and lots of them. PokerIdol also started its October Rake Race with $14,000 in prizes (http://bit.ly/cXQNEX). If you've not tried the site yet, this really is the month to do it. Mail me today for details and deals chris@pokeridol.com.

The Ryder cup was excellent, especially watched through my families 55inch 3D TV! An amazing machine and watching golf in 3D is great. They have some things to work out in the broadcast -- rain on the camera gave you a headache -- but overall it's definitely the future of TV. They also showed a bug documentary which is without a doubt the best bit of filming I've ever seen, totally knocking my block off.

My first live poker room review for GX Magazine came out last month without me realising, very exciting, I'm finally a printed journalist! This review was for the Circus in Stoke which I wrote after cashing the in £150 event they had:

For the next review I was invited down to 'Shuffles' in Portsmouth to play their £250, £10,000 main event. I was excited about this as most people I knew were off to London to play the EPT Charity event.

The journey to the club was without stress mostly to using Google Maps the night before. The last few journeys I've taken now I've looked on satellite and streetviews to get a visual of the area and to look for parking before I arrive. An extremely powerful tool!

The club itself was easy to find on the main road and I was let in early to meet the owner Jason, a very nice guy with a big passion for the club. I'll paste the review of the club in the next blog after it's been published.

I was confident when sitting down. While my game is always quite rusty as I don't play much these days, I've definitely been learning from the deeperstack tournaments I've played, namely being much more aggressive and opening much lighter. I started off well, hitting some big hands and by the first break I was upto 29K with the Ave being 16k:

I was actually upto around 35K, but 3-bet a button open from the BB as I thought he was weak. He wasn't an shoved over my c-bet.

I then got a little card dead and, I admit, a little nervous and had a few boring levels. Hit the second break with just over 32k with the average 30k:

Single towers are never good! Chips are light blue 25, yellow 100, red 500, green 1000 and blue 2000 -- a strange chip!

The next level I really started gaining momentum and before I knew it were were close to the final table, and money, bubble. I was the chip leader at the table and busted second in chips with KK vs JJ. Ended at the third break with 117K with the average being 60K:

Now THAT'S a chip stack. I busted one player and another busted from the other table, so we got to the final table. Going to paste my updates now from the site:

'Almost immediately after, chip leader Chris Edwards and fellow big stack Issa Ali got their chips all in on the turn. Chris with pocket 9's and Issa with A Q, the board showing A 9 3 2 and the river bringing a second ace. Issa places 8th, and wins £350.'

This guy was SUPER aggro, so was happy to bust him. That put me to chip leader for all but 2 hands! Another guy was busted leaving the best player on the table (http://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/player.php?a=r&n=43988), other than me of course, second in chips. Then this hand happened:

'The biggest and sickest pot since Shuffles opened last year, saw a 3 way all in on a 4H 2D 5H board. Current chip leader Chirs Edwards turns over pocket 2's for a set, while second chip leader Ryan Fronda turns over A 3, the second nut straight. Meanwhile Ali Morharrer has put his 80K stack in with A 7 of hearts, the nut flush draw. Innevitably, the 6 of hearts arrives immediately on the turn to give Ali the nuts. Ali wins the main pot, trippling up to become chip leader. However Ryan Fronda profits from the hand and now is a close second in chips. As a result of this hand, Chris Edwards drops from the chip lead, to less than 100K.'

That was quite frustrating but there's nothing I could do. Still pretty deep though so I continued pressing the action and had a nice double up:

'After very little action for the first few rounds after the break, Ali Morharrer doubles up Chris Edwards on a Q 3 J flop, Chris holding Q J and Ali A J.'

I then apparently busted someone else, although I don't remember this hand!

'The very next hand sees Andy Craddock pushing all in pre flop with K 10 and Chris Edwards calling with A 6. The board shows 2 6 2 J A, Chris winning the pot and Andy walking away with £750 in 5th place.'

We got down to three handed and I ended up flopping my 6th!! set of the tournament:

'Shortly after, there is a 25k raise from Ali, with a re-raise of £135k from Chris. Ali flat calls leaving himself only 30k behind, with the flop coming down 5 10 6. Chris goes all in on the flop with pocket 10's, top set, and Ali calls with A J. The turn and river comes Q 2 to see Ali leaving the final in 3rd place with £1600.'

I had roughly 3/1 in chips heads up but was exhausted (been playing 12 hours) so made a good deal for Ryan, £3900 for me and £3300 for him. Was happy to lock that up and go home.

A real nice win and I (obviously) had a great time. A very tired picture of me: (I didn't win with the deuces but for some reason we decided I should use them for the pic. 10's would of been the obvious choice but meh, we were all exhausted!)

So what now with that nice little cash injection? First things first, no it won't become my poker bankroll! I got lucky but still have no desire to play any more, it's going to go to better uses. The first was updating my work set up, buying a new monitor to replace the 32" Samsung TV which hurt my eyes too much. I settled on the 28" HanngG and absolutely love it. Great picture and great resolution, all for £250. I also bought a new mouse to replace the Magic Mouse which I didn't like. I settled on the Razer Orochi. Here is them installed and a better picture of both:

I'm going to get my car fully serviced, valeted and the stereo sorted (have most to go in, just need a sub and labour). I also want/need a new pair of headphones (Monster Beats) but will wait to see what the car costs are first, otherwise the Bose will last a bit longer.

The rest will go into my business as I was going to get a small business loan, but don't need to now. Exciting times for that still.

Have eaten out a couple of times this week with disastrous results. Firstly on Monday I ate at the Lebanese place we go to smoke Shisha. The food was good but the portion was tiny! Tuesday we went to 'Jamies', a new Italian restaurant with the Jamie Oliver name. He should be ashamed, the food was mediocre but the portions were smaller than Monday and the prices were ridiculous. I'm still hungry!

This weekend is going to be a bit of a lads one I think as Anna is not coming down and other gf's are away.

Thanks again for reading!

New Blog: Memories

2010-09-29T09:34:00.000-07:00

A blink of the eye and almost 20 days have passed!

Things are going from strength to strength with PokerIdol and the OnGame network. We continue to grow while others fall, making us one of if not the biggest 'secrets' in online poker! I say secret because most don't mention OnGame when discussing viable networks for grinding. That's fine, our client base are more regular, fish players, I'm sure the few grinders we do have don't want you disturbing the pond! Here is the OnGame traffic graph, almost back to normal:

The big dip was from losing France from the network, that one stung us all. However you can see we added two big new partners around the same time and since then the combined efforts of the skin has abled us to continue growing. If you want to see what you're missing out one, email me (chris@pokeridol.com) today for a special deal. Both the GSOP Online/miniGSOP (tournament players you DO NOT want to miss this) and GSOP Live are going strong too, check out the PokerIdol.com home page for details on there.

I've not been upto a great deal of anything interesting hence lack of blogs. I ended up missing Malta which was a huge shame as I was so looking forward to it, but the event was a huge success. Lots of teams in the team event and a great webcast by the PokerIdol team. Sadly neither of the UK players made any cash, but they really enjoyed their trip. Here are the girls outside the club and a preview of the new PokerIdol colour theme:

Have been spending a lot of time with Anna (give me another ahhhhhh!) which is brilliant. I enjoy every minute I'm with her and her cooking is amazing! She cooked for my friends the other night before we watched An Idiot Abroad (amazing) and it was really nice to properly introduce her to them. We took a stroll through the park (theres a bowls green there, surely no one will mind if I do an hours putting on there every now and then? its perfect and just opposite my house) the last day she was here and I must say it was amazing! Surreal, but amazing.

Check the PokerIdol jacket, what can I say! I know I don't look it in this picture, but I'm very happy here.

My poker chip collection is finally complete (for now). I have an amazing BCC Solid tournament set which I absolutely love. The 25,100 and 500 chips are Capone's and the 1K and 5K are Fun Nites. Even though they say something different on them, they're the exact same chip, which is fine for me as I love the colours rom each set.

Now to organise a game! Am going to try and get the Poker Project crew together again. It's such a shame when groups of friends break up for whatever reason. Mostly people getting on with their lives. I miss all my old poker buddies and all my old uni buddies! I try and stay in contact but it's so hard when you're working all the time. There's definitely not enough time in the year to fit everything in, but I really should make more of an effort. Was looking through my old uni pictures and this is definitely my favourite, what a cracking night out that was!

Look at the timestamp, nearly 4 years ago! What I've done in that time, and how time flies!

The business planning is still going REALLY well, I'm so excited about this. I'm writing formal business plan now and will then contact a few key partners to make the thing happen.

Sunday I'm off to 'Shuffles' in Portsmouth. They've very kindly invited me to play their £250 Main Event and I'll be writing about the club in my next GX Magazine review.

That's it for now and as always feel free to contact me.

Chris

New Blog: ExSITEd

2010-09-10T12:12:00.000-07:00

Lots of pictures this week!

Last week was real busy as it was the last Malta Madness qualifiers. With most offering a decent overlay I was furiously looking for UK players to sign up. Sadly none won, but there are still the two previous winners and also at least one group coming out, so I'll have the UK army I wanted albeit small! I'm also going to be doing some commentating at this event to, something I've always wanted to do and something that will look great on the CV! I fly to Malta on the 20th and CANT WAIT. Sun and some drinking, really looking forward to a break.

We've also been getting opinions on our new clothing range. First one of our new hoodies, which do you prefer?

Me and the rest of PokerIdol.com are now pushing the GSOP V, which is OnGames WCOOP/FTOPS equivalent. They run two versions, the regular GSOP which is has high Buy-Ins and high Guarantees, such as a $500 Buy-In $500K GTD! There is also the Mini GSOP which follows the exact same schedule with events having roughly 10% of the Buy-ins and GTD. More info can be found here:

https://www.pokeridol.com/Tournaments/GSOPV/tabid/348/Default.aspx

This year PokerIdol.com are also hosting exclusive qualifiers for the GSOP Live, a new tour spanning across Europe. Hitting some unusual places not seen on other tours such as Riga, Budapest, Malta and Seville, OnGame are really pushing the boat on this one. Expect lots of VIP treatment and the such. First event is in Riga and there is around $20K worth of packages being given away a week! Here are a couple of pictures to we your appetite:

Royal Casino Poker Room Riga:

Studio 69 where the welcome party is being held:

For more details see here:

https://www.pokeridol.com/Tournaments/GSOPLIVE/tabid/359/Default.aspx

If you've not yet played on PokerIdol.com then drop me an email to discuss deals! chris@pokeridol.com

Last week I was approached to contribute to 'Gambling Insider' magazine, a quarterly industry publication. What an honour! They were asking a few people from the industry how the potential opening of the US Market will change their marketing strategy. This my reply:

'Not operating our own network nor having any existing relationships within the US, the opening of the market presents us with as many problems as it does opportunities. If we were to apply for a standalone licence, we would need to partner with a software provider and the time and administration would be a great strain on our resources. Therefore PokerIdol is happy to continue pushing and solidifying itself as a unique brand within the European market, creating a USP that can translate to the US market in the future.

Chris Edwards, UK Country Manager, PokerIdol.com'

Real happy as only had 100 or so words to use. Great piece of work to add to the CV wall!

So, what is the blog title all about? Well I've been working more on my new site, www.supportyourskin.com and it's going to be great. I think having worked in so many areas of the industry and having spoken to so many people I know exactly what services will work well. Will also be nice to have something I've created myself. Will be launching it at the end of the year hopefully!

Also been working on another live event idea. I sooooo want to have a live poker event under my belt too. I put a little feeler out on FB and lots were interested. Determined to do one. Details at some point!

An old friend I used to go drinking with quite a bit posted something on FB the other day and others I used to drink with had replied, some I went to school with and others I just knew from the local 'scene'. I decided to look at their profile to see what they're upto and lots of them have deleted me! Now, I know I have at times been a bit spammy (this has changed recently after finding more effective ways to communicate with people) but this isn't a reason to delete someone? I was initially real mad but that didn't last long as I know they're all still doing what they did years ago and chasing crappy musical pipe dreams (not knocking everyone who does, but they suck) so that made me feel better. As the old saying goes, jealousy is the highest form for flattery!

Not played any poker over the last week as I've been ridiculously busy. I took the last day and a bit off to go see Anna, which is going great. Real happy to finally of met someone who is understanding of everything I do. I knew (and probably blogged) that finding someone would improve other areas of my life and I was right. Prepare yourself for a cheesy picture of us!

Awwwwwww I can hear you all saying! Thanks. We spent some time in Canterbury where she lives. Fun little town! The centre reminds me a lot of Europe as its quite old and rustic. Saw some interesting text-graffiti down a subway:

Wonder what state the author was in when they wrote that?!

My first poker chips arrived, BCC Capone's. They are SWEET! Definitely the best chips I've handled. Feel and look great. I decided to go for 'Solids' (no edgespots) as I love the look. I might get some edge spot chips at some point, for but for now these will do.

And there's me thinking I didn't have anything to write about! As always thanks for reading and feel free to contact me.

New Blog: Domain

2010-08-31T05:19:00.000-07:00

MONEY MONEY MONEY! In celebration of this blogs' name, here is a song of the same title, one of my favourites:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWtLydQKSKQ

Maybe I should do what Gervais does and post a song during each blog? Does anyone like to hear new music? You'll get a decent variety with me!

So why the money chant? Well, when buying my last domain (www.readingpokertour.com) for my failed local pub tour I saw they were about to start taking order for a new one, '.co'. This is the Colombian domain, but it has a little more appeal due to being similar but shorter than .com

I decided to take a shot and buy a couple. I waited up till 4am one morning when they first went on sale and searched for all the key words, poker, sex, search etc.. but of course they were already gone. I decided I wanted one poker related one that I could possibly use and one sex related one that I could sell. In the end I bought www.internetpoker.co and www.livecams.co (on advise from a domain buying friend).

The total purchase came to around £70 for 2 years ownership. I'd actually forgotten about them until recently, when I logged into my hosting account and saw them. I decided to get the independently valued and was super surprised when I saw the results! Internetpoker.co was valued at over £800 and livecams.co over £1200! What a result!

I'm going to stick with the plan and sell livecams.co asap and keep hold of the poker one. I figure the sex internet market is so established it has little room to grow, so I can get rid of it straight away. The poker internet market, while saturated, still has room in it and of course it's nice to have backups for myself. The pages now have 'parked' pages for the seller so that people can make offers, however I'm not going to sit around, I'm going to push the livecams.co domain out there and contact various sex webmasters. Networking is what I do best and will hopefully be rewarded for it!

I didn't realise how many domains I own now! On top of the two listed above.

www.1tripz1.com - my main one which has all my webspace and forward to my blog.

www.slowdrone.com - which linked to my music but atm goes to blog too. Will find a way to stop a total domain redirect at some point.

www.readingpokertour.com - as I said before the failed (or not pursued) local pub tour.

www.pokrenews.com - cheeky I know! typed this many times when going to pokernews for WSOP updates so decided to buy it as it was available.

www.supportyourskin.com - This is going to be my revolution against the online poker monopoly. More soon.

Perhaps I'll get more into buying and selling domains, but I guess I got lucky with the two .co domains.

Played the APAT Stud and as expected I didn't enjoy it. DTD has never been my favourite venue due to feeling too much like a nightclub and being too big. The structure was really bad and quick, which did't allow for much play. I didn't make many mistakes, but a couple of lost pots meant I was quickly short stacked. Got it in with AJ6 against K77 and made Aces Up but he made 9's full on the river. Sick! Oh well, at least I got a picture of me wearing the new patch:

As expected it looks great. More importantly, it can be read from pictures! Home to see some more people wearing these soon. Decided not to play the HORSE as it's just too far to go for a crapshoot, when I could be home working.

PokerIdol Malta Madness qualification is almost over and I've decided to try and get a team together for the team event. If I can we'll be decked out in Union Jacks. Will be fun! Got a couple of guys interested but may do my own satellite to give someone else the chance.

New laptop finally arrived, it's great to be back on Snow Leopard and have a lightning fast laptop. The last one had gotten really slow (think I dropped it). Have installed the newest Beta of Adium and it is AMAZING. Has to be one of the best programs I've ever used. Facebook have now provided support for it and entering you account as a Jabber account, you now get all your friends offline or online. Coupled with my new toy Growl, this is such a powerful tool.

After my poker chips were stolen along with my car at the start of the year, I've finally gotten around to buying some more. I've gone the geek route, buying from private sellers on Chiptalk. I've bought some BCC's and have almost got a real nice tournament set. Will post pick when they arrive, needless to say I'm excited! Will have to set up a little home game when they're all here. Who's up for a game in Reading?

I feel sorry for some poker rooms, employing retarded social media marketing agencies. I've had several contact me asking me to 'help their clients'. When I don't reply, I get many follow ups. Finally I'll ask what's available and it will be something like $25 a quarter to place a banner for a poker room. ARE YOU BLIND? I ALREADY HAVE BANNERS! DOES THAT FACT THAT YOU'VE EMAILED ME AT CHRIS@POKERIDOL.COM NOT RING ANY ALARM BELLS? As soon as I tell them I work for a site then bam, no reply. I wonder how much these idiots charge.

The PokerIdol blogs are in full effect! Am adding more every week with some decent effort being put in by the guys. Am really excited about this project, so am going to give them some good news about increasing the deal they're on. Can't wait to do some travelling with these guys to live events! If you're interested in joining, click the image on the right.

That's about it for now. Thanks again for reading and as always feel free to contact me.

New Blog: Smashed

2010-08-23T15:07:00.000-07:00

Must...Blog! God the time is going crazy right now, not enough hours in the day. Not helped by my sleeping being totally and utterly screwed right now after last weeks events.

After getting behind with my work I finally cleared the backlog on the 16th. I'd not been to the gym for a week or so getting it sorted, so I was looking forward to lifting some weights. I wrapped things up around 8:30pm, just as dusk was setting, and headed out.

I hadn't been at the gym for 10 minutes before I got a call, 'Where would your laptop be?'...'on the desk where it always is', 'Your window has been smashed and it's gone'. Yes, the ****'s had obviously seen my room from the street (only just moved in, should of realised I was on full view) and worked out which car was mine. They must of seen no one was in the other front room, smash and bang they're gone,

I'd never even though about it TBH as we have new double glazing, but of course all double glazing means is they do two smashes instead of one. Here's the scene when I arrived:

The worst part was not what they actually stole, but what was on it. Yes, I know, back up. I hadn't done it for about 5 months, with each month being busier than the last. The files weren't really the problem, anything I'd created and sent I can just ask to be sent back. The real problem was my iCal calendar which has run my life since February (see: http://1tripz1.blogspot.com/2010/02/ibrain.html)

I spent the night freaking out and not sleeping. The next day, overwhelmed with the rebuild project I had to undertake, I decided to take a couple of days off to prepare. What better way than with some poker! I headed to Maidenhead to play the £40 deepstack and enjoyed it, coming 20th of around 60. I'm really enjoyed the game again now as my game is back up to standard. In fact, I'm a lot less 'practised' as I once was, meaning I'm constantly trying new things and have upped my aggression massively. Sure, I'm going to make some mistakes, but it's all fun.

On the 19th then I started the calendar rebuild and it went much better than expected. What I thought would be a 2-3 day job actually took me just the one. I've lost data on everything in my calendar which I wont get back, but at least all the deals and dates are in. Phew. Working now on my old mac which was great as I kept my profile and everything installed, so could go right back to it. Will get the next one this week hopefully and transfer it all across.

Saturday I went and played the Rileys game and my game felt sharper than ever, winning some nice pots with lots of aggression. Got moved tables and in two coolers (TPTK vs set of maniac and AKs vs 55) I was quickly out, but am still happy with my game.

Sunday I attended an event called the 'Super Vs Battle', basically the biggest fighting game event of the year (www.supervsbattle.com) sadly I was there for a meeting (more on that soon) so didn't get to see it in full swing, but here are a couple of pictures anyway:

The main tournament stage

Practice area

Interesting to see just how good these guys were.

So start of this week is pure grind mode before seeing Anna on Thursday and then its the Stud WCOAP on Friday. I've been playing quite a big of Stud on PokerIdol, so am confident in doing well. Better than first out which is what I was in 2008! (http://1tripz1.livejournal.com/79739.html)

On a final note the first PokerIdol bloggers are up and running! Links are to the right and expect to see more of these guys very soon.

Cheers!

New Blog: Patched

2010-08-12T17:25:00.000-07:00

Going to be a quick blog this one. Since Stoke I've been getting my head down, burying myself in work. It's all going rather well at the moment. Ongame continues to grow and listen to the needs of their customers. All cash games are now 35bb minimum which is HUGE. Coupled with no waiting lists, I think the network is one of the top cash game options. Here is the uptick Ongame has gained recently:

At a time where all other networks have a downward facing line, this is really exciting. As always, if you want to try out Ongame, speak to me about playing on P

okerIdol.com

You may notice on the right a prototype for the 'PokerIdol blog team' logo. The blog team will be players of all standards who want to improve their game and increase their network of poker friends. Very soon there will be links under the logos to the new bloggers.

PokerIdols new merchandise is still un

der development, but the designs we've had are amazing. This is one of the many advantages of working with Scandinavians, they would rather pay a high cost for an outstanding product, even if its going to be given away. The merchandise won just be boring 'promo' gear, but fashionable products you'll want to wear out and about. Previews coming soon!

What has arrived are our new patches. What is a patch? It's the poker room logo a player wears on normal clothes. It will have a sticky back so it can be quickly applied. I LOVE patches, I think they look great. I worked for ages getting ours just right as they need to be bold enough for pictures. Here is a picture of them unboxed and comparing the new one to the older, smaller ones:

This has been a bit of a promo blog! Sorry about that. In real life things are going pretty good too. Am continuing to see Anna, in fact its gotten quite serious. Bit shy about it all to be honest (and who wants to read it) but having a decent personal live seriously improves the rest of your life for sure.

I've decided to start visually documenting my working life as you do pic up some interesting memorabilia along the way (patches, for example). I'm working on the Poker Icons section right now and it should be a nice thing to have on the wall when done. Will show that when done.

Played some horribly drunk poker last night at Deja Vu and lost 2-3 buyins. I always made it a rule not to play drunk, but I broke that a few times recently after it was the only opportunity to play and actually did ok. Last night was terrible though, playing tilty and rubbish. It always seems to happen when I hook up with Mr Loftstedt for a few drinks. We have a great time, he go home as he has normal working hours, I go to Deja Vu and carry on drinking and tilting. The difference this time though was I felt terrible about it, really disappointed in myself. I wont be doing it again.

The next poker coming up is probably the APAT WCOAP. I registered for the HORSE as soon as it came on sale and decided agains the others. However last week I checked to see what was left open and there were seats for the Stud. Having been the first out of the Stud in 2008, I signed up to see if my game has improved (I know it has as I worked super hard on it after that day, but would be nice to see it pay off!).

Other than that, my first article for GX Magazine will be out soon. More on that when published.

For now then thanks for reading!

New Blog: Stoked

2010-08-03T14:04:00.000-07:00

Firstly, hello to all the new friends I'm meeting and adding on Facebook. I have become addicted to networking recently and am really enjoying chatting to new poker players from all over the country. Now to some poker...

When working last week I saw the hype about the event they had in Stoke. A one-day, £150 tournament with £4K added. Seeing that a few people I knew were going and the quick structure suiting my experience (not to self: learn deep stack MTT) I was eager to take a shot.

I headed to the local Maxims casino to Buy-In as it's a longish journey to miss out! The have moved the poker tables in there which is a real same. The poker room was definitely my favourite, I guess because it was the first one I ever stepped foot in. I remember getting there and thinking, yeah, this is me. Th

at was about 5 years ago now. Wow.

I then had the worst nights sleep ever. I have trouble sleeping it must be said. Not actually getting to sleep, but feeling the benefits from it. My dreams are always so intense that I wake up mentally exhausted. Anyone any idea what this means?

Anyway, tired but still raring to go I hopped in the motor and headed up. Easy journey and got the casino after about 2.5 hours. The casino was nice, real big in fact. I was then pointed towards the free breakfast buffet and took full advantage going up for thirds. If you know me you know I need to grow!

I then sat at my table and first and tried to scope my opponents as they sat. After a few hands it was obvious I'd gotten lucky, with the players all being regular 'casino' players. I'm sure you'll know the type. Not too tough and mostly fun to be around. Even the players who got moved to the table were all nice (apart from one lady, more on that later). It was definitely the most fun I've had playing poker for a while. Here is a crappy picture of me in full grind mode (in the shirt with the headphones on):

The poker itself was quite eventful. I'll go through the interesting tweets as I was posting relentlessly during the event. Thanks to everyone who commented and supported me.

The first note is the dealers were really hit and miss. As they were dealing with much bigger numbers than usual, they had to hire extra ones in or recruit other casino works who used to deal. A couple would stack the chips, including the blinds and antes and bets as soon as they happened into one pile. Very annoying when trying to look at players and keep up with the action. One made a huge mistake however.

In the later stages the blinds and antes were so big any pot was worth winning, especially with a couple of limpers. In one such pot, all players turned their hands over, one revealing A6 and the other revealing A10. The dealer declared A10 the winner and started to shuffle the hand and the flop. The A6 player still had his cards. We then all realised that as the board was JJKQ, it was a chop. The haggard old woman who was being pushed the chips straight away said oh well, I've won now.

The floor explained that because the dealer had 'killed' the flop (turning over the cards and shuffling them) that the hand could not officially be split. However she said the other player could give half as a 'gentleman's agreement'. The other player said no and mayhem erupted. Now, I'm all for taking edges over someone and capitalising on them. Heck, I've written many a unpublished article on pushing the boundaries of gamesmanship. However, in this instance, I do believe in both being sportsman like and in karma. As the player who lost out argued, she said 'well I remember you calling me with A7'. How can you steal someones chips as spite of a bad call? Mental.

They also had a rule that if you called a players river bet, you HAD to show your hand. Not if they asked, but it was forced. This is ridiculous.

Anyway onto some actual hands. Three of the looser players limped in and I had 22 on the button, so decided just to set mine as none would fold to a raise and no one had enough chips to get fancy. Four to the flop, it came 338 with two diamonds. It was checked to me and, figuring my hand was good but vulnerable, I bet. Each player too a long time to fold, looking at me confused and I soon realised it must of been a bad bet. I know I don't rep much, so do I just check back? I think one of my problems was betting too quick and making it look too strong.

The last player to act called and quickly bet the Jx turn. I simply couldn't give him a hand seeing as they all thought I was bluffing and I've seen a few people recently pull a OOP float when they quickly donk the turn, so I called, planning to call lots of river cards too. The 4c came, a perfect card and he quickly bet. I insta called and he showed AQ. That hand gave me a scary image I think as no one played back at me afterwards.

Think started getting short but I shoved a couple of big hands and got my stack back up. Then another hand came up where more loose players limped and I again did with Jh10h in the HJ. The flop came 910J with 2 clubs. The first player, who was real tight, bet and the next player who was super loose but not aggressive at all made a big raise. I was obviously torn between shoving or folding. I decided that I need not take the risk as I had such little invested. The first player folded J10o face up and the loose player showed 9T for the win. Sigh. I was quite tilted at the time, but don't really hate the play. I guess bottom two is the worst of his range there.

Went card dead again and with antes now in play I really started to dwindle. Then came the hand of the year. Forgetting the preflop action correctly, there were three of us all in with one other player folding half his stack. I was the shorty and because of that and the way things played out I thought my AsKc would be good for two over cards. No.

The first player had KK, the second AA and the one who passed showed JJ out of the muck. 4th best hand! In real dire straights, the dealer pulled out the clubs on the flop. Being the only person with black cards I was able to maintain my 5% chance of winning. The 8c on the turn continued giving me 5% (I thought these numbers were going to slightly increase, would of made it more interesting, but I've been working it out as typing). I don't normally get visually excited, but wow I was shouting for a club. The 2c on the turn was so sweet. YES!! I screamed, as the huge rail that had formed gasped in excitement. One of the best hands I've ever been involved in but it also reminded me I struggle with the emotional aspect of the game. I was propelled into the chip lead and felt chip drunk for the first time in ages, having to fold the first 2 hands half dark. Imagine if that was half way through the WSOP and not a £150 event? I think I'd have a heart attack. Here is the table shot as quick as I could take it. You can just make out the cards.

So with that excitement over, I then went pretty card dead and was just precision shoving. The blinds and antes took ever big increases, but I scraped the money and busted 30th/344 for £300. Not the £12K first prize, but still nice to win something.

Earlier on I spoke about my sleeping. I haven't felt the excitement I felt at this event for ages. Needless to say I slept great that night and after just 5 hours I woke completely refreshed, feeling better than I have done in about a year. Today was the same, feeling great when getting up early. Maybe my mind just can't cope with always working? Maybe I'm more competative than I think? I'm going to try and play more live comps and more league sports and see how much this actually helps.

Had two SOLID days of work so far this week. Have got on top of everything I'd let drag behind and can now continue to push PokerIdol. OnGame numbers have risen excellently since the new skin is fully migrated. As always email me (chris@pokeridol.com) for a private deal.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to having more poker content soon!

Blog: Growth

2010-07-27T13:46:00.000-07:00

Today is an exciting day as the OnGame network grows by 30% with the inclusion of a huge skin and sportsbook. After all networks were rocked by the withdrawal of France, we will now become bigger than we were with Fr and should regain the 5th spot on Pokerscout above Cereus. If you're looking to try out OnGame to mail me for a private deal chris@pokeridol.com

Been a while since my lost real blog! I've been working so hard and I've jsut not had type, but that's obviously a real good thing. Last week I went to meet with a business I met last year in Icons. His business has changed into a grind centre where he basically employs online poker players to come in and do shifts. The office is AMAZING! Here are some pictures:

Hopefully we can get PokerIdol as one of their skins. Would be an great place to work and spend some time.

This weekend gone I saw Anna again which was great :)

Saturday I went to a party and saw some old school friends which was great. Marc bet me I could not do a 'Players' tequila slammer (remember the Ziigmund video). He should of learnt before not to bet with me.

Old article: The Myths Of Poker

2010-07-24T18:22:00.000-07:00

Nov 2008...

About two years ago I was coming home from a late night session of poker in my local casino. My taxi driver was bright and friendly and we enjoyed a pleasant conversation for most of the journey, until he asked the dreaded question; 'How much did you lose?'

When I asked why he assumed I had lost he said that of the most people he picks up from the casino had lost, especially young student types like myself. I informed him that I had won money that evening, not by betting on numbers against the house, but from playing poker.

'Well, it's just another way to gamble. Anyone winning in a casino is lucky'. I laughed at him and tried to say that I wasn't gambling, instead my win was purely skill based. We argued over the matter for the rest of the journey home. If you were to ask several random people, players or non players, their thoughts on the game you would get answers from both sides of the debate.

New or non players will tell you that poker is a game of luck and that it certainly is gambling. Naive poker players will then argue the exact opposite. However, students of the game or general gambling theory will tell you it's a combination, poker is a game of luck and skill. In their groundbreaking text 'The Poker Mindset', Ian Taylor and Matthew Hilger state that accepting these realities is the first step to thinking like a true professional.

Poker is a game of luck for one important reason. You cannot decide what cards are dealt. It does not matter how good you are (or think you are), you have no say on the matter. Therefore in the short term, just like any form of gambling, luck is the deciding factor in someone winning. Because of this, good players don't always win, but they win the majority of the time by consistently making mathematically correct plays. Therefore, in the longer term skill is the deciding factor in being a regular winner.

However, because of the luck factor on each individual hand, each bet is still a gamble as very rarely will you be a 100% favorite to win. There is still a chance you can lose, but the best players will reduce those chances. One of the best quotes on the matter was written by Anthony Holden in his famous 1990 book Big Deal.

'A gambler who bets on casino games is someone who wagers unfavorable odds. A poker player, if he knows what he is doing, is someone who wages favorable odds.'

Good players will continue to reduce the amount of risk involved by betting small amounts in relation to their available poker money, or bankroll. This means that inevitable unlucky losing sessions will not force them to stop playing. A person using poker to really gamble might risk all his money in one game and even if he is the best player, he can still lose.

It is the luck factor that consistently draws people to the game. Anyone can win at any one time, but sooner or later, the better players will always end up with the money.

---

Have been reading some of my old articles lately and while the grammar is a little rough overall I'm happy with them.

New Blog: Reunion

2010-07-14T06:44:00.000-07:00

I went to play the Deja Vu game last week but it wasn't on...instead some charity gig. One of the other players turned up so we went to have a drink instead. I was really, really in the mood to play after dropping him off, so I phoned around EVERYWHERE. Sovereign, TC, Western, Full House, KC, but no where had a game smaller than £1/£2. It's not the stakes, but I just can't be bothered to lose the money in that game. Winning is winning for me as long as the game is not a complete crapshoot.

So I didn't play and had to wait till Saturday. No matter as Thursday was an exciting day for me. One of the girls from my Egypt tour group was in the UK. Us in Nov 2008:

This was on our 5* cruise ship sailing up the Nile, on the themed Egyptian night. You can see who put the most effort into their costume! I got the train to London and met Taylor and her friend and we went for a pint near Paddington. I asked them what they were doing that evening and they had no plans, so invited them to Reading to go to a nice country pub. Taylors friend had never experienced this and it's a nice thing to do in the UK, especially if your experience is only London! So they got to Reading and me and Guy took them to the Pot Kiln, my favourite country spot. Us as the sun is setting:

They enjoyed it, especially the local ale (but not the pork scratchings) and we then dropped them back to Hammersmith.

My weekend was fairly quiet and Saturday I went to play the Rileys game. The play was the usual but I saw one outstandingly bad play. I was shocked. Blinds were 100/200 and a super tight player made his first raise in the HJ to 600. About 4 others called and saw the flop.

10x 6d 7d

First position bet 1k into the pot of about 2.5 and there were 3 callers (lol I know) until it got the the raiser. He was relatively new to the game (or live poker at least) and hastily threw in 1k and then excitingly saying raise. The table called him on the string bet and he was only allowed to call. The player to my right went into the tank before announcing 'its not this bet, but what you'll bet on the turn'. Now after this speech I'd put him on a 10 of some sort, maybe J10 or something. But then he flashed me his cards, 9d4d, gutshot and flush draw. Wtf?!

I was shocked. I have never seen a more basic call in all my life. Not only is he getting like 6/1+ (the numbers are a little off) but the implied odds are through the roof. I mean you know a tight player has a good hand! If you hit on the turn you're busting him. If you miss and he bets too much you fold. You have plenty of chips.

Anyway, I bubbled the final table after having a swingy game. I flopped two sets and lost both hands, so its hard to win. I stuck around to play the cash game for the first time in a while but we decided to play chinese poker instead. Happy to do so, we'd played around 5 hands when one of the regulars laid down 3 hearts at the front and proclaimed flush. Thinking he was joking, I showed my jacks but he went to take the chips. ?!?!?! 'It's a 3 card hand' he claimed, as the rest of the table agreed. We had a heated debate that those may be his rules, but not the standard chinese poker rules (wiki it) and that I'd been playing at a disadvantage. Whatever, he agreed, but we kept with his rules now I knew. I won a little bit. Edit: I actually lost a few pound!

Sunday we watched the final. Thought it was pretty boring! I then showed the guys the families 3D TV. They have bought a 3D BR player and Mosters vs Aliens 3D came with it. It's definitely impressive, with the quality being excellent. Another thing I didn't know the TV could do it turn ANYTHING into 3D. Now that is something special. I watched the Matrix on BR and not only was it excellent quality but the 3D gave it an extra layer of depth. Will be exciting when all these new 3D films come out.

This week has been crazy work and hitting the gym. I'm really enjoying the gym at the moment, especially the cross trainer. Now my life is a little more stable it will be exciting to see what can happen when I stick for it.

I feel like playing some cash tonight so will go to Deja Vu and play most of the game.

PokerIdols Facebook Freeroll is this Sunday. There is over $1600 in the pot already and all you have to do it 'Like' our page to enter. $2 is added to the pot for each entry. Check out this link:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/PokerIdolcom/120981371835?v=app_116804278362658&ref=ts

Thanks again for reading.

Nomad

2010-07-06T07:31:00.000-07:00

Can't believe the last blog was 24th June! I work myself silly every day and by the evening I can't bring myself to write. I really need to start doing it more often as blogging is a great release.

So...

I've been keeping things pretty quiet, partying less and working more and trying to get fit. Work is going really well, I'm meeting some great new poker players and am excited about working with them all.

Have also played poker the last couple of weeks at the regular Rileys game. The structure is the best I've played at 'crapshoot' stakes and allows for quite a bit of play. I managed to bubble the money 2 weeks ago and came third this past Saturday. The play is SO bad and its fun to just pwn them. The only thing is the poker talk, as stated in my last blog. This time I took my Bose headphones and just shut them off, ignoring anything they said!

Here is the hand that knocked me out a couple of weeks ago. I raised KQo on the button and the SB, a total station, calls. Flop comes Kx 2s 4 and he insta ships over 2 times the pot having me just covered. I know I'm always good here and snap call. He has 9s5s and binks the spade on the turn.

Afterwards he tries to explain 'I had the flush draw, I had to go with it' (ARGH I HATE THIS BASIC POKER TALK) to which I said, fair enough, but the better play would be to CRAI (surely? I mean if you decide to commit with a FD there you might as well give me a chance to C-bet with air which I nearly always do and then shove. Stacks are deep enough I can fold. His play means I only call with a good hand?). He and a couple of the other players laugh saying if I play like that I'm always gonna lose.

This week was better. Players were spewing left and right but I never made a hand until about half way when I made quads and got paid of with top pair no kicker. I then pushed hard and got unlucky in one big pot (can't remember how) but still managed a third. Almost played cash with them afterwards as it's so tempting and I had no plans that evening, but I've never liked playing cash after winning money in a tournament. I feel good for winning and losing it feels even worse. Maybe next week I'll go play cash instead. I might go play the Deja Vu cash game this week at some point (maybe tonight?) but we'll see.

Things are taking shape for the PokerIdol Malta Madness. I'm in the process of picking an official media partner from the UK and have some great options. I went to London last Thursday to meet with GX and Bluff magazines. Both mags have great guys working for them and it was brilliant meeting with them. Now comes the hard part of choosing, which luckily isn't my choice.

After meeting the mags I hooked up with a music enthusiast I met on last.fm and we chatted about music and general life. Had a great time and the minutes flew. She is really talented and I'm certain she's going to be a huge creative success. Hope to see more of her in the future!

I then rushed back to Reading for a date which went well, albeit we got a little too drunk. She is beautiful and funny but as always time will tell.

My family have bought a 55inch 3D-LCD which will be fun when there is actually 3D to watch. Last night we watched '2012' on Blue Ray and I actually didn't like the quality, it was too good! It looked like a cheap TV movie it was so clear. I guess I'm a little sucker for analogue technology still.

Ok well tonight I will hit the gym again and then maybe play some poker. It's mostly an annoying bunch but I'll take the Bose again and cocoon myself.

Thanks again for reading.

Wrong move, buddy.

2010-06-24T04:11:00.000-07:00

One of the things I hate most in poker is amateur know-it-alls. You know the guy I mean, he's never played online, but plays some crappy casino tournament every night. He has some retarded wisdom shared exclusively for live gamblers.

These guys don't really bother me until they direct their criticisms towards me. Now, of course I'm not the worlds best player, but I'd challenge most people on my knowledge of the game. Certainly any of these guys.

A few months ago I was checking out the new poker club that's opened near me and had one of these guys at the table . He was berating everyones play, talking about how good he was and generally being a c***. I was totally card dead, so never really got involved, but there was a big hand at the table with 7s6s versus Ks6x (lol I know) where it was AIPF. The 76 binked a 7 on the river knock the other player out.

The annoying player piped up, sharing his wisdom that the 76s was the favourite. Wat? The rest of the table agreed, but I had to tell him otherwise. This guy would not budge though, laughing off my reasoning with the sort of confidence top salesmen would die for. Wanting to make my point, I cracked out twodime.net on my phone and but the hand in, showing him in fact the K6 was ~65% favourite. Here was his response:

'That is only pre-flop though. After all the cards are out, 76s is a favourite'

WAT?! How can you know that? What is your reasoning I asked him? 'It's just a fact, ask anyone' and again the rest of the table agreed. My god.

More recently, I was playing the small cash game I usually frequent. A player to my left was a complete novice, so was going by what the host, a real c*** (sorry to keep implying the word, I must be good at attracting these guys), said, which was a really bad idea as his knowledge is terrible. The novice made a raise and there was a flat call, with the host then shoving on the button (about 20bb's).

The novice insta-called and flipped his cards over, not realising another player was left to act. The host goes mental and announced that not only has this player killed his hand, he has to forfeit all his chips! What?! The poor novice accepts this but I had to defend him. I couldn't quite remember the rules, which only allowed the host to try and dominate me with his assured version. Him being in the hand obviously wasn't a factor. I since talked him down to the player being able to take his chips back, but losing his cards. Jeez.

On Saturday I played the Riley's game again and did quite well. Although small stakes, the game is so fun do to the completely unpredictable play. However, I was sat against the worst know-it-all I've ever met. I mean this guy would flash any suited hand before folding 'I bet that would win'. Then came a hand late in the game when a player was all in for 1bb in the BB. Two players including the know-it-all limped with decentish stacks and I found 88 on the button with about 4BB left. Now, for me, this is a totally standard shove, isolating the all-in player in the BB with and ATC range.

The know-it-all instantly berated me, saying anyone with half a brain would limp and the three of us could check it down to eliminate the player. What? Limp 1/4 of my stack and reduce all chances of winning? He went on about it for ages.

No real moral of the story here, just venting my hate as micro stakes games at the moment.

Had a good work week and there is some big changes possibly happening in PokerIdol which will only be a good thing. More about that soon but I'm excited.

Other than that, more work coming up. Taking a break from drinking so not much partying on the horizon.

Thanks again for reading.

Continuing the grind...

2010-06-18T09:24:00.000-07:00

So I didn't go to Malta in the end. A real shame but I'll be there in September for the PokerIdol Malta Madness, and event I seriously recommend you check out. Sun, girls, free booze and of course some sick poker. What more could you want?

This blog is now going to be cross hosted on itspoker.co.uk. I first started chatting to the owner Ad last year when spotting a thread of his on 2+2 and contacting him. We did some stuff with the site for the Icons players which was cool. The site has changed quite a few times but I think they've got it bang on as a decent blog portal. Cheers for the invite, Ad!

If anyone else wants me to join their site do just ask. I love to write and from time to time can do some exclusive content for you.

Mentioning Icons, I finally got some money through from all my hard work at the 2009 WSOPE. Some exerts from my Twitter:

11:55 AM Oct 1st from TwitterBerry
Its all over. I'm going home.
4:45 AM Oct 1st from TwitterBerry
This is Epic. It's 6:10am, I am wasted from well deserved, but obv premature partying. Waiting on some huge phone calls. No sleep tonight.
10:11 PM Sep 30th from web
Getting punched in the face by at the absolute last minute. GREAT. Diregard my last update? Maybe :(
7:32 PM Sep 30th from TwitterBerry
I just signed one of the WSOPE final tablists (with a pre agreed sponsorship deal). Me. Me. Me. That is big money. Root for Markus Ristola. If he wins I will buy you a car.

I wont say exactly how much it was, but my grand total from doing that job for ~8 months is under £1k. Oh well, it was a crazy and fun experience and has given me the opportunity to be where I am today. Thanks Lars and Per!

Have played a couple of live poker sessions since my last post. One was the Deja Vu cash game, where I had another great winning session. Flopped top two and top set within my first three hands and got paid of both times, it really is an easy game sometimes! The game is sooooo loose and everyone expects you to slow play, so of course a very simple strategy is to fast play. Great fun!

I then played last night with the Phat Dogs which I used to play with every week. Those guys were a big part of my evolution as a player and it was great fun playing with them again. I ended up luck boxing my way to third for a mini cash, but it really made me realise how bad game still is against better players! Think I'll carry on playing the micro limits for now.

I've got into Big Brother this year. I liked it when it started as it was real interesting, almost like a scientific experimentation. The next few seasons were good as well as they had some different ideas on how to mess with the housemates. But as the seasons dragged on they just did the same stuff and threw a bunch of young, hormonal outcasts in there, waking them up at 8am making sure everyone was cranky. This years Celeb Big Brother was great, so I decided to give this one a chance. The housemates are still a little too 'out there' for my liking, but there are at least a couple of strong personalities with opinions I don't mind listening too. They seem to have gone back to basics and focused more on the tasks again which is fun. No early alarmclocks either.

So the plan for the weekend is to watch the football in a few minutes, having a quite one in though all weekend. I basically can't (and don't want to) drink right now, so taking some time to relax.

Once again thanks for reading and as always feel free to contact me.

Wins

2010-06-07T13:42:00.001-07:00

Had a couple of poker sessions over the last week and they both went really well.

Tuesday was London for a couple of meetings and to catch up with an old school mate. Both meetings were good, but not sure what will come of them. Seeing Kate was brilliant, but after spending the whole day in the city I was really ready to come home! London is awesome, but I am not quite sure I could live there. Also, how people commute there and back every day is beyond me! Real champions!

Wedneday I went to watch Ed Lofstedt play. Ed is super talented and if you're into folk and/or acoustic, I urge you to check him out. I wanted to play the cash game at Deja Vu afterwards, but this time I drove in. Was nice to sit in the game sober! The night went well, winning nearly 2 buy-ins in around 4 hours. I got home and slept well and was able to work the next day. I do love my drink, but staying sober during the week is really important. You can have fun and not drink. Apparently.

Thursday and Friday were just lots of work. Friday night was BBQ, beers and PS3 at Marcs, I do enjoy the lads nights! Saturday I wasn't too hungover and heard there was poker at my local Rileys again. For anyone who used to ready my old blog, I used to visit there regularly a couple of years ago. While not having the bankroll to play the juicy cash game I always did well in the tournament. With all the old faces, this time was no different.

The structure was actually real good. We started at 3pm with 10k starting and 30 min levels. No one knew how to play deepstack so made tons of errors, which were easy to capitalise on. Not that I'm a deepstack master, but I understand all the important concepts. With about 30 runners, I got to the final table second in chips. Dwindled for a bit, but came back and ended up heads up with an almost equal chip count (I had slightly more). My opponent was one of the better players there and he wanted to play me heads up, but I persuaded him to chop. Declined the cash game afterwards as it was back to Marc for more of the same, with some female company this time.

Sunday I chilled and did some work and today has just been a big work grind. Got a new office chair, nothing epic (was £200 though!) but its made things much more comfortable.

Tomorrow will be a bit more work, but am seeing a friend for lunch then the guys for some drinks in the evening. Wednesday off to Malta to hook up with PokerIdol! Really looking forward to a couple of days abroad. Will be back on Saturday for a party and I'm sure lots of sleep Sunday.

PokerIdol has just released details on it's flagship event the 'Malta Madness'. I couldn't be more excited, this event will be televised and will feature not only a €1K main event, but a unique team event where you can chip dump, make substitutions and take time outs. There will also be a 6hr super decadent boat party hosted by Monster drinks. Gonna be sick. If you're planning a poker holiday this year, check out www.maltamadness.com

Other than that, things for reading and as always get in touch!

Plotting

2010-05-31T14:09:00.000-07:00

Where does the time go?!

Monday and Tuesday were spend working my arse off before hooking up with Mr Ed Lofstedt for a drink. Ed is a great friend of mine I met at college a few years ago. He plays acoustic folk music, super high quality, so check it out.

We sunk quite a few pints and had a good laugh before he headed home to get some sleep for his normal-person job. I instead headed over to Deja Vu to play the cash game. For once I ran like god and it was great! I got Aces 3 times in about 20 minutes! I hit quite a few good cards and played quite crazy, taking full advantage of my rush. The night was quite funny as I carried on drinking, chatting to the random folks that turn up in that place. I got talking to one very 'street' young lady, who was educating me on macs funnily enough. She then went on about her boyfriend who steals peoples phone and promised if he comes around he wont steal mine. Cheers! I also found it hilarious to speak to her in a real prince-William style voice as she spoke in such slack tongued drivel. I laughed for most of the time, but she didn't seem to care.

Got home and slept at around 6am, feeling like shit the next day. This wasn't good production wise, so if I am going to play that game (which I will try too as its great and small stakes) I wont drink. Don't mind having a lay in on a school day, but I have to get up and get at least 8 hours work grind in!

The one bit of work I did do on Thursday was develop the Reading Poker Tour which is going to use a new live/online event model I've been working on. If Reading goes well, I can launch it in other cities. Will be great fun and pure value for the players, while very good business wise for PokerIdol too.

Friday and Saturday I worked during the day and chilled in the evening around Marcs house, playing Bad Company 2. Interesting game! Not just a FPS, but with lots of tactics too. Great sound design also, however a bit more care could of been taken with reverb time in small spaces, but I'm an audio nit :)

Yesterday I did a bit of work before heading back into town with Marc, Guy and my other school friends. We went to 0 Degrees which is fast becoming my favourite spot. Relaxed, funky and the crispest, freshest most ice cold beer as its a micro brewery. My mouth started watering writing that. I also had a pecking duck pizza which was amazing! Clare was on a budget trip, bringing out a bottle of rum in her bag to spike her own drinks! Not seen that in a while and I turned down the free rum to begin with. However, when we moved to the dirty land of the Purple Turtle I thought fuck it and started ordering just cokes to which she added about 5 shots worth. We left there around 1 and went to Deja Vu to see if there was any poker. None, so we had one more drink and a game of table football. We enquired of the strip club upstairs was open but it was shut, so we retreated at 3am. That is starting to seem like an early end to the night for me now, which is a little worrying!

Worked loads today which was pretty boring, not everyone can have a bank holiday! Going to get into bed soon and watch 'Daybreakers'. Been on a sci-fi tip recently, but been quite disappointed with what I've been watching.

Am in London all day tomorrow having meetings which should be cool, always nice to head to the city. Wednesday I'm going to see Mr Lofstedt play a gig and will no doubt end up in the poker game afterwards, but NO (excessive) drinking. Probably.

Thanks for reading and for all you poker players check out www.pokeridol.com for some awesome new promos we're running.

Berkshire (UK) Young Professionals

2010-05-25T06:35:00.001-07:00

This post to show interest in the Berkshire Young Professionals page on Facebook. For now, if anyone is interested in joining, you can mail me chrisedwards@1tripz1.com and I can put your name down for when it's running.

The idea of the group is to arrange networking and social events in the Berkshire (UK) area for young professionals.

Long week!

2010-05-23T11:17:00.001-07:00

A solid 11 days since my last post. Blogging used to be a ritual I wanted to do nearly every day! Now I forget but needless to say its something I always want to do.

Last weekend was fairly quiet. I am leaving the partying for a while due to putting some weight on. When I go out feeling bloating with my clothes being tight I don't ha

ve fun. I need to get back to being healthy, this has really slipped over the last couple of months. I am eating well again and already noticing a difference.

I had a quite start to the week but Thursday saw me heading to London to play a 'iGaming' poker night at the new Bluff Europe cardroom at the Mint Casino. I love casinos, love poker and love meeting people from the industry, so was really looking forward to it.

The casino was quite quirky as its in the centre of a bunch of big houses, see the picture above. Inside its like a small maze! It was quite nice, although could do with a bit of a refurbishment. The new poker room was great though, with plenty of space for a decent little tournament.

I had fun chatting to quite people, some I've spoken to before and some I hadn't. The poker was a bit of a crapshoot, but fun all the same. The highlight was shoving in the dark and getting called by Gene Gioia of Real Deal Poker with 99, only to flop top two with J4o. Cut n shuffle wasn't any help that time! haha!

Although as a whole the casino was a little small for my liking (hey, I'm a giant), I'll definitely go back for any other industry nights that happen.

I spent Friday night with a new romantic interest and had a fantastic evening. Her name is Anna and I'm quite taken a back with her. Definitely going to see more of her.

Saturday I played some golf with some old poker friends which was a good laugh. It was at a local pay and play course that has a par 3 course. I was quite impressed, with some holes being really tough! I shot 34, 7 over, which I am quite disappointed at but hit the ball well, just missing puts. In the evening was BBQ and comp games at Marc's house.

Today caught up on sleep and did some work. Now off for a shisha and beer in the lovely weather.

Plan this week is to play lots of squash if possible, plus practice golf in the morning. Oh, and to crush work.

Have a great week all!

Grinding away

2010-05-12T16:20:00.000-07:00

Not a whole load of interesting stuff going on. I must say, when I played poker regularly, I always had something to talk about. Still, a wrap up...

Last Thurs I played a squash league game, lost 3-0. The guy is really athletic and my fitness has gone right down. Its weird, although I was playing lots of squash and getting fit, I got lazy at the same time. If I couldn't play squash, I wouldn't do anything. Squash games are still quite scatty for me, so like it or not, I need to do other stuff. Fitness still plays on my mind and my happiness.

I got up early on Friday and went to hit some golf balls. That was great and I definitely need to do more of that, maybe throw in half an hour on the bike too. Low intensity morning cardio is supposed to be great, but its getting up early enough so I don't start work too late. Getting up is hard when you don't have a certain start time.

Friday night I had a CRACKING night out. I must admit, I'm loving the work all week and go out on a Friday. You feel like you've really earned it and really let go, then having a day off on Sat. Met up with my party guys, an old uni mate and his mate who is sound. We went for a Burrito, which was quality, and I drained 4 beers during. We then hit Ivory Lounge, but that was pretty dead, so only one beer there. Then it was 0 Degrees for a quality pint as they are a micro brewery.

After a few expensive bars we headed to Pavlovs Dog, a favourite student haunt. Not my top choice as I used to spend all my time there, but good for a few double rum and cokes. We then decided to hit The Afterdark, a dirty but popular back alley club just on the outskirts of town. The good thing about this place is £5 entry which gives a free double, then doubles are £3 all night. Over double that in some other central locations. The main reason I've never liked this club is it always played a) indie or b) 80's and I hate both. This time though it was a 90's night! Wow, all my moaning about hating 80's nights and wanting a 90's night, my dream came true!

They played some classic tracks that really took us back, I was seriously drunk, dancing and loving it. The place shut at 3am, but not wanting to stop I invited the guys and 2 of their friends we hooked up with to the casino. After blagging entry for the two who had no photo ID (its doable, casinos really want you in there) we settled down at the bar until it shut at 5am. Well and truly drunk, I got home at 6, watched Season 1 Episode 1 of High Stakes Poker (CLASSIC) and finally got to sleep around 8am! Great fun.

So yeah, Saturday I did nothing and Sunday I did a bit of work, before heading out for another Burrito in the evening, then for a Shisha and lastly some PS3 at Marcs house. Rest of this week has been work, slightly disappointing tbh as I've found it hard to get motivated. Still, am working through quite a lot, and when thats sorted will have plenty to do. The job does have its little slumps, but it always come through bigger than before.

Tonight I went on a date. I also had one last week now I remember. Both were shite. Run bad much with girls? Meeting them is no problem, but it never works out. Oh well, grind away ;)

Tomorrow is lots of work before a late night drink with a mate, then Friday more work before seeing a uni mate I've not seen for a while. Not sure how the evening will pan out, but I'd imagine (or hope) it was as good as last week! Sat will be a veg day and Sunday I may go play the Oxford Cup.

Thanks again for reading and feel free to get in touch.

Toon and Gloom

2010-05-05T08:13:00.000-07:00

To catch up on things, last Saturday I ended up in town for a few ales. Sunday was my predicted big work day as was the rest of the week.

After hearing various reports on the time it will take me to get to Newcastle, plus the fact I always get a bit lost when heading to distant lands, I decided to head up on Friday. I left around 10:45, hoping to get up there just before 4 to miss rush hour. This wasn't to be.

Things were going Ok up until my first glimpse of the A-bloody-1. I say glimpse as that's all it was for ages, a huge traffic jam tailed out of it keeping me from touching the actual road for nearly an hour. Once on it, the horrible two lane highway was slow slow slow. This really needs AT LEAST another lane!

Now, when driving, I like to get my foot down and make my miles. This means when I need a piss, I hold it for as long as possible. Service station? Next one. Next one. Ok now I reaaaaaally need to go. The next one available was right at the end of the A1, about an hour out of Newcastle. I came off at the junction and instantly got lost in the maze of small roads. I ended up in some village and followed the Sat-Nav back to the A1. Got on it and realised I'd got on the wrong way. The A1 is in such a bad state, all of its junctions are closed, so I had to drive down pretty much the entire length to get to the original junction. I also had to pull over and piss in a bottle.

This added almost 2 hours to my journey as the traffic was getting thicker and thicker as we approached rush hour. It was a lovely 17:15 when I got to newcastle and it took me and extra two hours to get through the city. Great.

After my near 8 hour epic, I arrived in the suburb of Jesmond, a posh studenty type area. My hotel was called the Kenilworth and with the help of viewing Google Maps before I left, I drove round the back and parked up. I went through the rear entrance and followed the signs to 'Hotel entrance and bar'. I walked into the bar and the music was pumping! I went upto the bar and asked the pretty girl where I had to check in? Here! she said. A hotel where the reception is a bar? I like it already.

She took me too my room, a small but comfortable double room. Having not eaten properly all day, I grabbed a quick shower and headed downstairs. As I got down there, lots of students in ball attire were turning up, having a pre event party, so there were no tables for me to eat. Luckily my hotel was along a strip of many others, so it wasn't long until I found one with a nice restaurant and had posh fish and chips, which was great.

I then had a wonder around the village, what a great little place. I wandered into the shop, bought a few cans of Old Speckled Hen and a packet of Oreos and headed back to my room to watch some poker. Around 11pm the music stopped, so I assumed the party had moved on. I headed downstairs for a few more drinks and had a chat with some locals. I then headed to bed for a well needed rest.

On the Saturday I headed up to the casino fairly early, to see who was around. The casino is currently morphing from a Grosvenor to a G, so it wasn't in the best of condition. Finally the bus load of fish turned up and I finally got to meet the RTR crew! Its been, what, 3 years? The first 2 years I was a student with no money to travel and last year I was an agent with no money to travel.

The tournament went pretty badly for us, coming last with no points! I felt I played alright, apart from one key pot which lost me most my chips. Can't really be bothered to write about the hands as they were all fairly standard. After busting out, I started on the sauce and railed some of the guys playing another tournament or cash. We then headed back to the hotel everyone was staying in so they could all change and we headed to a strip bar.

This is my first time being in one for one reason or another (I've been to Amsterdam, so I basically skipped strip bars experience wise) but I hated it. Sure, the girls were mostly stunning and the place was nice, but the drinks were shite (£4 for bottle of fosters) and the girls hassled you so much. I want to chill with a decent drink and if I decided to have a dance, go at my pleasure. I got pissed off (and was pissed) so headed back.

Sunday I headed back to rail the two guys still in, Mr Dov and Mr Rubbish (did they bust out Saturday?) before they too exited the event. I wasn't drinking as I was deciding wether to stay that evening or not. News that my poor little cat had been put down and taking a bad beat from that side event made my decision. I said goodbye to the lads, headed back to the hotel and burned it home. Took me only 4.5 hours this time, with no traffic and no stops.

Was a quality weekend overall and great to meet he RTR crew. Looking forward to next time!

Quiet week

2010-04-24T05:11:00.000-07:00

After having a few days away last week I decided to have a quiet, hard working week. It went well with Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday being solid 12 hour days. Am on a definite upswing at the moment, with some great new partners coming on board.

Been playing a few hands of online poker still and my feel is slowly coming back, which is exciting. I then went out Thurs evening for a curry and ended up playing small stakes poker in the same venue I did the focus group. Compared to last time I was there, my game felt really solid. We were playing 5 handed most the time which is a plus as Ongame is 5-max.

I folded top pair a couple of times and broadway on a 3-flush board, each time right, something hard to do when out of practice. I also made some very thin value bets and a couple of great calls. Feels good that my game is coming back and I will try and keep it at a decent level now as there will be a demand for me to play more.

Another reason I've been playing loads is next week is the forum team challenge. Will be great to finally meet the RTR guys, I means its only been around 3 years?! Study and money has always been a factor when these things have come up in the past, so will be good to finally show some dedication. Looking forward to meeting the other forums too. If you're wondering who I am, look for a tall, stocky, insanely good looking guy wearing a PokerIdol patch!

This weekend will be a quiet one. I felt really ill yesterday and unfortunately had to cancel plans to meet a lovely girl called Monika. Soon I hope! Today there might be a few ales on the cards but I'm not so sure. Tomorrow will be another big work day as will the rest of the week ready for the weekend.

I will be taking one day off next week to attend my first gig in a while, seeing the unique 'Nedry' http://www.myspace.com/nedrymakesmusic who are a live dubstep/electronic band with a Bjork like female vocalist. A uni buddy will becoming down too so will be great to catch up. Will try not to get too smashed so I can work Wednesday!

Played my first game of squash the other night for a few weeks. I've not intentionally stopped, but a few no shows, no opponents and you quickly get used to not playing. I'm still really determined to get fit this year, so gonna start going back even on my own. Also need to hit a golf ball for the first time this year! Looking at these amazing evenings and not going out is hard work, especially as I was playing nearly every day last year. But if I remember, I told myself to make the most of it because at some point I'd need to get my head down. Feels great that that time is now :)

Cheers to all who are reading, drop me a comment or an email, appreciate it as always.

Hex

2010-04-18T07:52:00.000-07:00

Wow, time is going fast! Over a week since my last blog, so lots to catch up on.

The meeting with the pub league went well. Was nice to play some poker again, although the structure was a little different than Austria :) Not sure if I could play regularly anymore, I do crave something a little deeper these days. That weekend wasn't too eventful I don't think.

This week has been a lot more busy. Tuesday I took my trip up to see a couple of casinos, namely the G in Coventry and the Alea in Nottingham. The G in Coventry was amazing as it was built by American architects, so look very much like a vegas casino with water features and neon lights everywhere. My description doesn't do it justice. The poker room is also very nice.

Alea Nottingham was nice, but its a bit hard to get too being right in the town centre. I like somewhere a bit on the outskirts with a big parking facility. That evening I stayed in a rather old hotel in Birmingham where I had to change rooms for the first time ever. The place was comfortable enough, but the windows were super old slotted ones. This mean on the side of the hotel that caught the wind (mine obv) the windows would bang so hard in their frames it sounded like someone knocking on your door. Luckily they were happy enough to move me to the other side of the hotel and I got a decent-ish few hours sleep.

Wednesday I headed to the Gala in Birmingham, which is an absolute dive. Then to Walsall to check out the Grosvenor there. A bit dreary on the outside, but decent enough inside, and easy to get too with lots of free parking. After that I headed to Stoke to check into the hotel we'd be staying in for the evening. Had an Ok-ish mixed grill at the adjoining Harvester then sat in the hotel bar drinking the night away.

That evening I fell asleep pretty quickly, only to wake suddenly within an hour. This is very unlike me, so the odd time It happens I panic (the last time was to be sick in Egypt, 2 years ago). To say I've never felt so strange would be an understatement, I couldn't focus on anything and pretty much had the sensation I was about to die! I think a combination of the booze (lots), waking from a deep sleep and a probably nightmare is what did it. A quick episode of South Park sorted me out and I've been fine ever since. Weird.

Thursday we hit Alton Towers although it was quite busy, I went on Oblivion, Nemesis and Hex which is fine. I really like all 3, Nemesis is really intense, Hex as it's epic and Oblivion as the falling sensation is crazy, it feels totally unrestrained! Took my friend who came back with me to see G Coventry on the way back before getting home quite late. Suffice to say I slept like a baby that night.

Friday I had an epic work day (I need to start doing many more of these) and hadn't planned on going out, before I got an invite for a mates birthday. That is a good enough reason, but these days I try to never turn down a night out. During some depressed times over the last couple of years I stayed in way too much and my time to be young and free is starting to run out, so I've made an effort to be lots more sociable. Its fun! Yesterday I vegged out for most of the day before going to a buddies house in the evening for some PS3 and today has been work. May go for a pub drink later on.

Few things lined up for this week, but mainly its going to be work work work. Good luck all!

Conundrum

2010-04-07T13:00:00.000-07:00

I decided to start playing online poker again for two reasons. Firstly, people will expect me to play from time to time doing this job and to be honest I don't want to be rubbish when I do. Secondly, I've sort of got the bug again to play.

I say sort of, because I don't really know what I want to do with the game. Back when I was playing lots I would play 3/4 hours online 5-6 days a week and play live 4-5 times a week. I saw playing online as 'practice' for the live games, which I preferred. I used to do well, making a steady profit online and cashing on average once a week live.

I stopped playing for two reasons. One, I had a degree to earn. Two, I got bored of doing well. Sounds stupid, right? Well, I was only ever at the micro limits and didn't have the time or bankroll to move up (micro earnings was enough to supplement my part time job). I decided my time was spent being productive, hence the degree and doing well in it.

So now, what are my choices? 1-2 hours of micro limits every night doesn't really appeal to me. That 1-2 hours I'm not achieving much and will never get the time back. I guess if it stops me looking bad when I'm 'forced' to play, then that's something. For now I should try and get to the skill level I once was and decide where to take it from there. One thing's for sure, I'm never going to be an online grinder and am happy about it. I also don't believe its really sustainable to make a living from live poker. I do however believe I have the ability to be a good poker player. Weird then, I believe in myself, but not the game. Perhaps I should try something new?

Have been ill this week with some sort of bug. Nothing crazy, but It's left me feeling horribly fatigued all the time. I've worried that it's my new TV. The novelty of a huge telly has worn off already. Its not particularly useful when working and I hardly ever watch films full screen (It's at a funny angle to my bed, if I want to lie down and have it full screen I have to literally have my head turned full right, not comfortable). There is a 26" downstairs, so will probably swap with that.

This illness meant no epic road trip which was shame. However, I have a car! Went last minute to see another Clio. My friend drove me, for about an hour, and we when we arrived a big 'Automatic' sticker was plastered over the front. Whoops! The dealer has a new car just arrived though, a Peugeot 307. Now this is a car I'd never considered, but it was spacious, black, tidy and had a poky little engine. Whats more, the dealer must of been doing badly as I got him down from 4k to 3.4k fairly easily. Am super happy with it and will take it on its first decent run tomorrow.

Am going to meet a small pub league. This one is quite old, a 'survivor' of the good old days. Have already struck up a rapport with the owner via email and phone, so am confident we can do business together. Excited about being part of a pub league again. A small one like this, close to home, would be perfect.

Not much planned for the weekend. Gonna try and shake this bug, plus get tons of work done, as I'm off to Alton Towers next week. I will also fit the casino visits before or after the trip as it's in the same area. Really can't wait for a little trip away! I feel like a kid, but the 'Hex' ride is pure epic, like being inside a film with the score playing in the background.

I've received a couple of mails from people reading this blog. Thanks, I really appreciate it.

I ARE DWAN

2010-04-01T15:39:00.001-07:00

Well, not really. But last night I played in a very well run, public, regular micro stakes cash game. The chips we're flying and I was well and truly annoying my opponents.

Monday and Tuesday were pretty uneventful, having to cram lots of work in around organising a focus group for last night. Now I was randomly pa

rt of a focus group before, so knew how I wanted to run it. I think its important for the settings to be informal, quiet and to relate to your content somewhat. Luckily for me Deja Vu bar in Reading, where I started the games, saw such potential they have bought 2 full size tables which run 4 nights a week.

Having worked for the GM in two different businesses and knowing how the thinks, I made the quick call, 'I need the poker area for an hour and will be buying 6 new customers a round of drinks'. Easy free venue.

Got there early and set up my banner. Hard to see in this picture (crapberry camera) but worked out well.

Had a great group attending, couple of mates and new introductions, all from different spectrums of our target market. I dealt a high card for the button before every group of questions to decide who would answer first, which I thought was a neat touch. Got some amazing answers and discussion, I got very lucky with the group.

Two of the old Poker Project crew were in the group, with another two who I don't see all that often turning up later. Was great to see them all, always have a good crack. The two who turned up late wanted to play poker, so with the regulars we started a 10p/20p NLHE cash game. All I wanted to do was drink, and when Olly headed off I urged Antony to come with me somewhere else. We hooked up with Olly again they wanted to go back to the poker. Not a good idea when I'm drinking.

That said, because the stakes were so low I didn't mind. I was raising and 3-betting like a mad man and gambling profusely, picking good (or at least not terrible) spots most of the time. A lot of the regs got annoyed when I showed down bad hands and I generally enjoyed not worrying about the stakes, which is a real first. I will definitely hit this game again, sober, and spew a little less.

Friday and Saturday are going to be boring this weekend, most probably wont go out as I have tons of work to catch up on. Sunday will start a short, but fairly epic, road trip. First its driving all the way to Barrow for Glen's (former business partner, http://www.pot-committed.co.uk/) wedding, which should be fun. Monday and Tuesday I hope to hit Nottingham, Walsall, Coventry and Birmingham looking at Casinos. Tuesday evening will be in NW London meeting a potential business partner, then a finally getting home.

I will be exhausted. I can't wait.

All I need to find now is a car. It wont be a 'total' disaster if I don't as I can borrow one, but it would be nice to take this opportunity to bond with a new machine.

Good luck!

The good, the bad...

2010-03-28T15:06:00.000-07:00

Had a really good week, mostly because of one amazing meeting on Friday. I can't go into it now, but suffice to say it's going to give PokerIdol a huge edge in the European market and allow us to DOMINATE an entire sector. Am so excited but trying not to be because, as I know all too well, deals are prone to falling through. God I hope this one doesn't, it would be an insane amount of fun.

Making good progress in other areas of the business too, although this week have had my first couple of negative attacks. I try extremely hard to be professional and to not take advantage of situations/people, but even then some aren't happy. Its a shame and I feel responsible for these bad feelings, but inevitably its going to happen. You can't please everyone.

After the meeting on Friday I got nicely drunk in some bars before railing the poker game in the casino till the early hours. I must say, chilling with a drink and chatting shit with poker players is great fun. Saturday I lay comatose for most the day, considering looking at cars but never moving out of bed until the evening, when I had some company for some wine and a movie. Watched Unleashed, a great slice of Jet Li action.

Yes, my car. Insurance money has cleared so must buy one before I spend it!

Today was mostly work and preparation for Wednesday, where I'm holding a focus group. Will have a group of 5-8 people and will ask a few Q's on our new promotions, so looking forward to that. Will be nice to get back into events by holding something small.

Other than that its another solid week of work. I really, really, really hope the potential partnership made on Friday can start moving forward. Like I said, super excited.

Have a great week!

Fogetting

2010-03-23T16:42:00.000-07:00

Hopefully this blog will be more coherent!

After last Thursdays lazy day I hit work hard on Friday. I worked pretty much solid up until 7 and then went to get ready for going out. I laid down and couldn't get back up. I drank all the energy drinks in my room but this made me feel ill. I couldn't miss some drinks though, so I finally got the 11pm bus into town. I guess I was only in for 4 or so hours, but I drank enough Rum.

Rum. It is slowly becoming my new favourite drink. To begin with everyone was hammering Sailor Jerry's and I hated it. However, one night out a few weeks ago I spent the evening chatting to a delightful Reading uni student (who has since deleted me from Facebook, after one mediocre date. Why!?) and was drinking it with her. Since then I've started to choose it over my old favourite Jim Beam.

Saturday with a slight sore head I played some poker round StevenH's house. We played a HA cash game and I hadn't played PLO for ages. However, I did spend a while studying it so my fundamentals are sound. I folded a couple of 2nd nut hands and made some good in-position bluffs when holding key cards.

The NLHE portions were a bit more crazy. I was fairly card dead and more seriously, brain dead. My feel for the game is pretty non existent these days and I don't think over hands anywhere near as good as I used to. In fact, I have started forgetting parts of hands, or not even factoring them in.

One great example is when I smooth called a raise on the button with 78s after a couple of other callers. Pretty standard so far. Flop comes 3x6c8c and its checked to me. I bet 3/4 and get check raised by Steve H. My thought process was, its a set or nothing, I'm not going to mess around, so shoved. While he was tanking something popped into my head 'Oh yeah, he raised UTG'. Great. He finally called with JJ and stacked me. How could I forget the whole of pre-flop play?

I won it back when I made my first straddle of the evening. The SB, a loose and aggressive player, raised me after looking like he might fold. Thinking I'm the king of reads after picking up on that girl in Vienna, I decided to 3-bet with 23o. He smiled and called. Flop came something like 982 and he checked. I had about 1.5 PSB left so just decided to ship. He thought about it and called with QQ. Well played by him and crazy play by me, but luckily I binked a 3 on the river lol.

After that not much happened, I shoved the nuts in PLO and made my opponent fold a huge draw, which I had blockers, great.

Game broke fairly early but being tired I went to bed.

On Sunday I didn't get any work done, instead I headed into town to by myself a 32" TV. I ended up with their cheapest one, a Samsung. Apparently the screen is as good as any upto £200 more, but the sound is poor. This is no issue as my sound is all external anyway. So with my bargain I headed home and arranged my new set up. This was the first time I got my new MBP into play and after a day messing with contrast, brightness and screen size, I was done. Here we go...

Pretty redic, but its great. My new set up is almost complete, I now just need the new wireless apple mouse (so sexy) and to sort my desk. Its hard to see in the pic, but my desk is a plank of wood on top of two very big speakers. At my last uni flat (god I miss it!) they had no desks and I saw no point in buying one of just a year as I had one at home, but it was a top floor flat with tiny stairs so no way of getting it up there. I was given the two huge speakers as they are shit, but they are two big solid bits of wood. To be they were the perfect size for desk stands, so I headed to MFI and bought a large sheet of wood for around £20. I cut it to size and before I knew it I had the most perfect desk ever. Long, strong and loads of leg space.

Over the year friends started tagging the desk and I used it as my notepad (look at the state of it). I love the memories (its dated 08/06/2008 as the date we moved out, wow) but its time to move on. Im going to make into a half poker table, with cup holders and proper elbow rest. Its going to be amazing when finished!

All thats left for this week is work work work. Am hoping for a quiet country drink either tomorrow or Thursday. Then on Friday I have a potentially huge meeting, so we shall see.

Good luck to all.

Black head

2010-03-18T12:14:00.000-07:00

I am suffering from a weird condition I've come to know as black head. It occurs once a year, always on the 18th of March. I love Guinness and feel a necessity to drink it on the 17th. I am, of course, one quarter Irish and with my Grandfather passing last year it was only fitting I lift a few pints of the dark stuff in his honour. He didn't actually drink much Guinness, preferring Baileys. Topped up with Jamesons. Legend.

So today was not too productive as I've felt like I'm running at about 40% efficiency. I start to do some work, get distracted, do some more work, glaze over and daydream. Still, I got some stuff done. This week has actually been pretty good. I've been giving the go ahead to start planning my first big event.

This is super exciting as I've wanted to do this for the last year. I've presented the idea to other people and heard nothing back, so will be great to pull it off and throw it in their face. To everyone reading this, the event will benefit you immensely and be the first of its kind.

Played 3 squash league matches this week and lost them all. My game is coming along for sure and I feel as if I'm more skilful than my opponents. The problem is experience, I still don't have it and get stuck in certain spots. There are only so many great recovery shots you can do.

The nice weather is here. I cannot wait to hit the golf course again. I know I say it every year, but this WILL be the year I hit single figures. I've not had many gaps over the last couple of years, so my game is pretty strong still.

(this post is really bitty, like I said I can't concentrate, forget putting a coherent article together)

Good news on the car front, the insurance have paid! They valued my car over what I paid for it too, so I will get something a little better.

Ok, going to end this drivel there!

And another thing...

2010-03-14T15:03:00.000-07:00

Its fucking great to be back blogging, to being creative again. Only a few months ago I would only manage a few words, if anything at all. Now I could sit here writing all night!

Some hands from Austria...

2010-03-14T14:30:00.000-07:00

Even though I summarised the trip in the Swedish article, I didn't actually include any hands. So lets add some actual poker content to the blog :) I will look through my tweets from the tournament (I always tweet big hands) and summarise the more interesting ones.

Day 1 I really didn't get any hands of note, so much that the only tweets are of me complaining about a boring table and being tired! Actually even on day 2, nothing too interesting happened. I doubled up three times early one, once with KK when crippled and then once with Q2. Yes, Q2. This was one of the two errors which occurred in my favour.

I was in the BB and a few people limped. Flop came A2x and the table checked. Turn was a 2 giving me trips. With 4/5 other players in the hand, I decided just to bet and get some money in there. A very quiet Chinese bloke to my left then made a very bad move. He shoved his single chip stack in, took his hand of, then put his hand back on and pulled the tower up leaving only a call.

Now, I looked straight at the dealer who was shaking his head and he explain to the guy it was an all in move. The Chinese bloke was vigilant, so the floor was called. Everyone explained the situation except the Chinaman who said he didn't make the move (he really did, everyone agreed). The argument carried on whilst I said nothing. A couple of times people asked me to speak up, but its really unfair as of course I want the all in to stand. I decided then to say nothing until the last minute if the ruling went the wrong way. However, the floor and dealer both agreed his shove counted and I of course made the call. He had A4 and I busted him.

A little while later, with the blinds only at 200/400 I raised to 1100. A really good player 3-bet to 7000, but then looked shocked at his amount, claiming it was meant to be a call. Again, I sit in silence as the floor comes over (I have AA) and again, correctly, rules in my favour. I shove for a little more and the guy is forced to call with KQo. He took it better, saying 'misclick' and probably making a mental note not to do it again. To his credit, I played with him for his entire tournament and he was by far the bet played I came across, a real pleasure to watch.

So I was running good with cards AND floor rulings. This helped me get really comfortable and I made my first and only 3-bet bluff shove. A woman to my right was on the button and after one limper she made a very subtle move to fold, but then raised. I picked up on this and was 100% sure she was weak. My mind said to me if you don't take advantage of this now, you should forfeit your chips. So I thought for a moment shoved the rest in (I actually probably hand the best hand with KJo) and she quickly folded.

I C-bet one hand and lost it and got moved to another table and did the same, after flopping an Ace with AT (no idea what I would of done if shoved on) to keep me around even. By this time I was on around 36k with the blinds 600/1200/100. I picked up AK in the cutoff and raised to 3100. The guy to my right, a super solid smoker, starting messing with his chips before shoving for around 40k. Wow. Here is a pic taken just before he shoved:

As you can see, 3 gold 1k chips and 1 grey 100 chip. Also notice me looking like a complete twat in the scalf. Smoking is horrible at the table and this combated it slightly. So now I have a decision for all my chips with AK after investing less than 10%. I've never laid down AK PF in a tournament before as I've never been deep enough. However, I've done it a few times in cash games, so do know how to do it. And in this spot, it just felt right. Why risk my while tournament on at best a coinflip? Im beating nothing in his range imo.

So I reluctantly folded. I'm happy with my decision too. At the table he told me he had a band hand, but later that evening he told me he had KK.

After that there were no real hands. Blinds and antes started eating me alive while I couldn't get a hand. I finally picked up AJ on the button and shoved, before the SB insta re-shoved. GG.

This weekend was fun. Got some drinking and chilled out after a solid weeks work. Was great hanging out with friends in Reading although I was a little sad not being in Vienna.

Am desperate to play some poker now. Going to try and get a couple of cash games sorted for this week.

Lord Of Mind

2010-03-10T14:34:00.000-08:00

(I shall go back to naming posts after song titles if I cant think of anything)

Tired. Tired but motivated. Its easy for laziness to creep in, especially after a weekend away. I must say however, a bit of (almost) deserved time off and some partying has done me good. I feel relaxed after the weekend. It was great to meet the team, we got on really well, all enjoying a drink and some poker. Its always scary joining a new company, worrying if you will get on with your team mates. What if you love your job, but hate your colleagues? That wouldn't be too much of a problem for me as they are sunning themselves in Malta while I'm here covering myself in gloom juice and drizzle oil (Bottom references anyone?). However, there is nothing to worry about. Am very happy with where I decided to work.

I am starting to feel like Im making great progress with the job. Im still putting lots of effort in and am seeing some great results. We are taking on quality affiliates all the time and they will soon be able to take advantage of some unique promotions. One of which I conjured up and I must say Im super excited about it. Revolutionary is a strong word, but this could be close to doing that for hard working players. All will be revealed soon.

No real news on my car. Found out the Gym is a private members club, so the theft is classed as a burglary, same as a house theft. That is good then as its means I should get my insurance payout. I miss my car so much its crazy. Not so much the car itself, I wasn't really attached to it, but just having a car. Getting too and from Gatwick was a hassle, train, buses and coaches hours at a time. Driving too and from the airport is really easy being close to it, plus I always like drive home from Gatwick, the roads and nice and clean and its always a bit of a surreal drive. Hm, maybe its best I don't have a car for a while, lol.

So what's the plan this week and weekend? Well I'm going to work my nuts off after missing 3 days last week for Austria, then have some sort of epic food/drink session on Saturday night I hope. I should really organise something as I always leave it till the last minute and end up with nothing to do.

Going to watch the WSOPE now, its coming to the final episodes so I should see myself more often. What an epic trip that was. I will do a proper write up about the crazy story soon.

Austria Review

2010-03-10T14:31:00.000-08:00

Austria was sick. I was asked to write an article for a Swedish (yes, Swedish, getting translated I guess) magazine, so will use that as the trip report. Hopefully I won't get busted for copyright. Its only a first draft anyway, few mistakes here and there.

PokerIdol Austrian Open

Flying from London to Vienna takes a little over two hours. A two hour car journey in the UK can take you to many different casinos all with the same rules and game. A similar timed flight can take you to other European cities where you will find a similar situation, low limit Hold’em, serious players and occasionally unwelcome environments.

The Montesino Card Casino, around 20 minutes from Vienna centre, was a whole different experience. Arriving at the mall complex that houses the Montesino, you have to walk past cinemas, a range of shops, bars and restaurants before reaching the top floor. Its refreshing to walk past some entertainment, some life, instead of the usual snooty casino front desk or half-sleeping slot gamblers.

Walking around the cardroom for the first time I was instantly transported to 70’s Vegas as I watched players smoking cigars at the tables and playing 30/60 Stud. A quick tap on the shoulder and I turned around expecting to see Johnny Moss, but it wasn’t until the waiter said ‘Sprechen Sie Deutsch’ I remembered I was in Eastern Europe.

Having played in many countries and casinos I was surprised to see such a big Stud game running outside of Vegas. The game was almost always running and was full by late evening. This was refreshing to see as I always enjoy playing other games. A few rounds of the smaller 3/6 game satisfied my needs.

The smoking was a little different. In the UK, we banned smoking from all public places nearly 3 years ago and I have become used to it. Having someone lighting up next to me then was an unwelcome distraction. The casino helped where possible by offering a few non smoking tables and asking smoking spectators to move by request, but this was little compensation. I believe in this modern age poker should be a universally non smoking sport.

After observing the locals and regular games, it was time to meet our hosts for the weekend. PokerIdol provided a welcome party where the Russian Standard and Red Bull never stopped flowing. This might be common for bigger tournaments, but for a medium stakes event it was a great touch. We talked late into the evening before being surprised with a special party only freeroll. Drinks full, we headed over to the card room and were greeted with smiles from the tables.

I have to say, the Montesino dealers are the best I have ever encountered. This can be attributed to the prestigious training school they run, so exclusive that completion doesn’t guarantee work at the casino. Every dealer was fast, efficient, polite and patient. I never saw one mistake, misdeal or miscount and had two big issues calmly resolved by the friendly card givers.

With a turbo structure, the action in the freeroll was fast and furious. Before long, the winner was decided and they spun the jackpot wheel, with PokerIdol honouring the prize landed. With sweat dripping off their nose as the arrow flickered past the €2000 top prize, huge sighs of relief were had when the bottom €100 was won. A few of us carried on the merriment with a €20 Sit n Go before retiring, ready for a day off relaxing before the Main Event.

Saturday came and the room burst into life late afternoon. Players from all over Europe descended onto the card room looking to win their share of the generous €50,000 guaranteed prize pool, fantastic value from the €550 buyin. As the clock struck 19:00 the room darkened before a frenzied light and sound show started. I look around, half expecting to see a WWF superstar enter the room. Instead, the tournament director took to the microphone and uttered the immortal words ‘shuffle up and deal’.

Looking around the room, you could spot the PokerIdol staff a mile away. One wearing a large sombrero and another wearing luminous sunglasses. This really captured the whole essence of the event. Sure, everyone was trying to win, but the sense of fun from the first night was still there. I’ve attended tournaments so serious that spectators have been blamed for bad luck. Here was different, an almost community spirit amongst the players. You were sure to know someone here.

And so I played my first deepstack tournament. We started with 15,000 chips and were treated to 60 minute levels, a structure better than lots of established tours. This allowed for lots of interesting (or new and experimental for me) plays. Slowly players started to drop out and after my second ‘toast’ of the night (even this was the best I’ve had) we were left with around 100 players.

On the second day the blinds started increasing and antes came into play. A few SMS messages to experienced friends on adjustments to make (this was my first experience of No Limit antes), I was armed with new ‘M’ calculations and really started concentrating. Player after player fell before we were down to just 32 players from the starting 120. My dwindled stack, eaten up by antes and badly timed moved, was pushed into the middle and quickly beaten. Out in 31st and short of the money, I was however happy with my performance.

I spent the rest of the evening railing the final table, cheering on my fellow British player who eventually finished 8th.

I expected to be nervous throughout the tournament. Sure, most players were experienced deepstack professionals and could probably read my mind, but the friendly atmosphere helped keep me calm. The PokerIdol Austrian Open was definitely one of the best events I’ve ever attended, fantastically run at a quality venue. I eagerly await their next location.

Dude, where's my car?

2010-03-01T16:49:00.000-08:00

Last week my car was stolen. My gym has squash courts in a separate building behind the main building. There is no lock on the door, no reception and no lockers inside.

When I play I hang my jacket on the coat hooks outside the court and take all my valuables inside. For the first time ever I left my keys in my jacket by mistake. When I came out of the court my car was gone. CCTV shows the thieves walking across the carpark 15 minutes before we finished out game. Sadly the footage is too dark to use.

I was worried that my insurance would not pay out, however I was told today that because the gym is a private members club its classed as burglary, same as the home. That should make a huge difference.

Friday night I hit the dancefloor for the first time in a while. DJ Bailey was playing and I enjoyed a solid 30 minutes dancing. However, I started sobering up due to getting into town late and not drinking much. I do enjoy being really drunk when raving, so being sober lost me all my buzz. I then hit the casino and railed the live game whilst drinking more. I do enjoy that to be honest.

Saturday was a chilled night before a very interesting Sunday. I met a beautiful Hungarian girl, Tunde, for drinks in town. She is extremely interesting and fun to be around. We went back to hers as she needed to pick up her dancing outfit (more on that in a bit) and I met two of her 6 housemates, a Spanish couple.

The girl was very nice, but the guy seemed a bit funny with me especially when I told him I'm from the area. I guess if your dream image of England was red buses and bearskin soldiers but the reality was the Oxford Road, you would be pissed at the locals.

Tunde then took me to her Salsa night where she is the top female dancer. She went and got changed into the aforementioned dress and WOW. She blew me a away. Such a figure, when she walked across the room all eyes were on her. I ended up getting a little bored as dance after dance guys pestered her and her passion for dancing kept her busy. We parted later with a kiss in the cheek and are meeting again tomorrow. Who knows.

Today was a solid days work, but I still need to get more organised. Its becoming a real wash as I don't really remember anything, I just reply on iCal to tell me stuff. I think I need to be a little more precise with my notes and I should be fine.

Looking forward to this weekend very, very much. Flying out to Austria on Thursday for the PokerIdol Austrian Open, the first big perk of my new job. Vienna has always been a town I've wanted to visit and I'm excited to meet my new colleagues. It may seem strange to some that I've not meet the guys I've worked with for over a month, but with Icons we worked together for over 6 months before meeting! Its just the nature of the business, its very non bullshit. Why have a formal, nerve racking, time consuming, basically useless series of meetings if the person is obviously right for the job?

The guys all seem interested in some drinks and degen action, plus I'm escorting WPT magazine who will be covering the event, so will be fun to travel with a fellow Brit. Not planning on playing poker, but I'm getting paid this week. Heard rumours of private but affordable mixed games I can attend, so that will be tempting. Should be a cracking time all round.

And breath...

2010-02-24T09:49:00.001-08:00

Phew. Need to catch my breath a little. Not because I've been exercising like mad (although I am doing well in the health department again) but because I'm working like crazy.

Its weird knowing how many opportunities there are out there. I feel in a rush, no, pressured to achieve them all. You need to be organised though. Realising and obtaining are two different things. I mean, what's better? Contacting 20 people quickly and getting 1 deal or contacting 10 in a personal matter and getting 5? Sure, you may lose out on the 10 you didn't reach in time, but you gained more from the ones you did.

I also love talking to everyone I work with as we all have one big thing in common (poker) and usually others. They are such an interesting bunch of people.

During my working day I feel a huge amount of stress, but that's only because I want to succeed so, so much. The main part of my job comes easy, but its the extra bits I want to do well in. I need to learn to relax more whilst working. Practice and patience.

My results are good though. I am competing against huge companies who have 20 people doing every aspect of my job, or others who hire in big marketing companies to assist. Yet right now its little old me, securing partnerships and contacting people no others have been able too. I feel very proud of myself.

Today is a happy day; I purchased a new Macbook Pro with my first paycheck. I've had this one for nearly 3 years and its life is coming to an end. It still has OSX Tiger which is a big drawback. Every day I dread its going to crash and all my work will be lost forever (I do backup, probably more than most, but still not enough).

I am going to completely remodel my working environment. Gone will be the budget student set up and in its place will be a slick, custom designed space. I look forward to having it finished.

I met with my accountant for the fist time last night. Being self employed is hard work! What's great is I've known her for quite a while now. She used to rent office space at my old studio and I even did sound at her weddings, so we go way back.

The weekend was fun, my first enjoyable and social one for weeks. Its a great feeling to 'need' a night out as you must of been working like mad. Not sure what's in store this coming weekend yet, it will need to be a little lean after my MBP purchase but no doubt one or two beers will be consumed.

Right now I need a lie down.

iBrain

2010-02-18T14:34:00.001-08:00

Squash really brings out the worst in me. Friendlies are fine, its a laugh and I enjoy the exercise. However, put me in a competitive setting (a local league, for no money, no prize, no nothing. Competitive, reeeeeally?) and I completely lose my rag.

I'm trying to figure out why. Perhaps its my competitive nature embracing the little chance it has to release. I mean, I've always competed. I used to play golf tournaments, at least once a week, with decent results. Then with poker, I was playing that 3/4 times a week, again winning consistently. But over the last year, since getting my head down and starting my career, I have not been playing. So my once well exercised competitive nature has been laying dormant for quite some time.

I have played the odd game of poker over the last 18 months without even raising an eyelid when a bad situation comes my way. My approach to the game has been a reserved one, not expecting to win. With squash I have been playing a lot, so maybe that's my minds one expectation to win. However, I am still inexperienced and seriously lacking in athletic ability, unlike most of my opponents. This puts me at a huge disadvantage as I am mostly playing people of equal or better skill. No chance.

I hope its some petty reason like this and not some more serious anger issues. Am I an angry person? I don't think so. Sure I went through a lot over the last year or so, some stressful times, but who doesn't. I did have some wild racket slinging sessions whilst concerned about job applications, so maybe I am coming down from that still. At least my rackets are no longer being hurled.

Anyway. Work is going great. About two weeks ago I was getting very stressed as I was moving at an incredible rate and trying to keep track of everything with pen and paper. Before I used to use an online CRM system called Highrise. It was pretty good and helped keep me organised. However, its a pay to use service and pretty pointless if its only going to be me using it. I tried a few free online CRM's but they were, for a lack of a better phrase, fucking shit.

I HAD to find a solution though. I had reached my brains capacity and was not where near achieving the work output I needed. I messed around with a spreadsheet, but those are clumsy and take a lot of effort to maintain. I then tried to see how customisable iCal was after fiddling with it before. Wow.

Click three of the buttons below the calendar and you have an extremely powerful event planner. These don't need to be events, but can be business deals. Viola. I now have a computerised brain. I enter the deal, update its progress in the notes, set a date to check it again then completely forget about it. Its a weird sensation to just use your brain to process as opposed to memory. Its lifted a huge weight off my shoulders and improved my productivity incredibly.

Seeing friends and eating out tomorrow night which should be fun. Im sure we will hit a few bars afterwards too. I will probably hit the casino as I know people are playing this weekend but I definitely wont be. Saturday I shall relax and may even go out for another swift half in the evening. Sunday probably squash and more work. Sounds like a fun weekend all in all.

Fishing with a single hook

2010-02-14T13:23:00.000-08:00

On Friday night I went out for an old school friends birthday. His and his families (Friday night with your mum, dad and aunties? It's sweet and I've seen it before, but no way I could do it) idea of quality establishments were places I frequented as a 16/17/18 year old, so I was eager to move on.

Luckily Marc took me to hook up with one of his personal banking buddies who I know quite well. We hit a couple of higher class bars with a higher average age, all wore nice shirts and drank decent drinks. I felt much more comfortable and must admit I prefer this type of place now. Getting old? Perhaps not, but definitely growing up. Last week was out with an old college pal who is a year younger. He suggested we go to the big student pub, where its cheap drinks all the time (£1 on a Monday). I used to hit this spot at 5pm before the £1 pints start, just so I could enjoy the entire budget period! Not anymore, the idea of that place, the noise, the teens, the rank watered down beer, really put me off. I dragged him to a nicer place and enjoyed a quality pint.

Its very strange as I still cling on to elements of my rebellious youth, for example the extreme music and funky clothes, but I must admit after spending my time as a poker agent socialising with nice people in nice places I love that scene. I love wearing a shirt and buying an expensive drink. I don't think I will every be 100% Mr Corporate. Instead the abstract, almost rebellious businessman, much like my time as a club golfer. As a junior I always stayed within the dress rules, but my luminous hairstyles and unheard of piercing gave me a slight edge. I believe its always going to be the same with me and business. I hope so anyway, I never want to fully fit into the stream of people. I like having my head above the clouds.

As is the case with most of my nights out, I head to the Casino for one last drink. Not to gamble (anymore) but again for a more upclass, quieter environment. Most of the time I will know someone there or will bring someone along, but occasionally I like just sitting at the bar with one last beer, winding down for the night. However, the Grosvenor has done something rather annoying; they have re-introduced poker.

I purged my gambling vice a while ago. At one point it was getting a little hairy, running off to the casino to spin the wheel of misfortune on my own, but I came out of it a little wiser (and a better poker player...) and luckily before I busted myself. I enjoy the odd sports bet these days, but that's about it. I can go to a casino happily and drink without gambling now as, like I said before, I really enjoy spending time in them. Seeing some of the fish I've had my eye on for the last few years drinking and playing poker however has a terrible pull on me.

The last couple of weeks I've gone to watch the game and within minutes been sitting. The problem is Im not willing to risk much, so I play with one bullet, around 50bb's. And as any half decent player will know, this is not good. I sit there, hope to get a good hand before I blind my chips away and stack one of the fish. I know I have an edge, so use that as an excuse, but really this half arsed attempt is still gambling, right? I mean, one bullet, thats a gamble.

For the second time I got stacked in a totally standard spot and walked away from the table cursing. That is not poker. So from now on I shall resist the temptation to play, instead wait for the time Im more confident in my game again and willing to risk more. Then we can play.

Saturday I played some squash and then had a COD4 chill out. I love lads nights in, where we can forget about the weird world out there and act like kids again. Today I played a squash league game and lost, so tilted. I then did some work, but the combinations of not really sleeping the last couple of nights and lots of sport has left me feeling EXHAUSTED. I am literally struggling to see right now. Going to get an early night and try to rise nice and early to plan some new marketing plans. There is one I want to get cracking on, but my contact who will be a big help is proving to be unwilling after previous bad experiences. Determination.

Greetz to everyone now viewing this blog, I should of made the change sooner.

The Beginning

2010-02-11T15:23:00.001-08:00

I am back to blogging. Oh yes, these are exciting times. Am a little sad to of left LiveJournal, it contains some of the biggest moments of my life. But onwards and upwards, am really looking forward to writing once again.